Revived at Birth, New and Improved
by Jakespeed207
Summary: When a small slip up by Kushina during the sealing of the Kyuubi no Kurama into Naruto happens and Kurama manages to pierce and kill the baby with his claw, a strange black and red strand revives Naruto. Follow Naruto as he goes through his life as the new Prototype. AU. More logical and smart Naruto. Noticeable differences. Eventual NaruHinaIno. Rated M (you'll find out why.)
1. Chapter 1: What Started It All

**Welcome to Revived at Birth! Now, for those confused at the title, it will be explained in the beginning of this chapter. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Jakespeed207 owns nothing! Naruto and Prototype belong to their respective owners!**

* * *

_"_Talking"

'_Thinking'_

**_Scene change/Special events_**

* * *

**_October 10, Konohagure..._**

It was a dark night in Konohagure, the Village Hidden in The Leaves. The Kyuubi No Yoko, more commonly known as the Nine Tailed Fox, had attacked the village, and the death toll was rising considerably. However, the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, had intervened just as The Kyuubi was about to destroy most of the village with a Tailed Beast Ball. Quickly summoning the chief toad Gamabunta, Minato had it forcefully close the Kyuubi's mouth so that it was unable to shoot its attack before using his most renowned technique, the Hiraishin, to teleport both himself and the Kyuubi towards a safe house where both his wife Kushina Uzumaki and their newborn son Naruto were. Deciding to act for the safety of their village, Minato and Kushina, with some reluctance from the latter, decide to seal the Kyuubi inside their son, Naruto. Although at first Kushina had been completely against the idea, Minato quickly explained to her that he saw no other way to deal with the Kyuubi, since they weren't able to destroy it and sealing it again into Kushina, the previous jinchuriki of the Kyuubi, was impossible because of her weakened state. He also explained that with the seal he was going to use, the chakra of the Kyuubi would slowly be transferred into Naruto, without the malevolent aura of the Kyuubi. He described to her that the man who had extracted the Kyuubi from her and controlled it so it would attack Konoha would most likely be back, and Naruto would need to be ready. In the end, Kushina relented, and Minato, using the Shiki Fūjin (Dead Demon Consuming Seal), sealed The Yin part of the Kyuubi's chakra into himself, causing the Kyuubi to weaken and shrink considerably. The chakra chains that had been holding it in place now looked too big for the demon fox. However, as Minato prepared to do the Eight Trigrams Seal...

_'No... '_ thought the Kyuubi, _'They plan to seal me inside that blonde child... I won't allow myself to be jailed inside another pathetic bag of bones!'_

With the small amount of freedom that it had gained from being shrunk, the Kyuubi threw it's left paw forward, hoping to skewer the blonde newborn or at least crush him. However, Minato and Kushina saw this, and with speed that only a parent could muster when their child was in danger, they threw themselves into the path of the claw, causing it to skewer them instead and making it stop just inches from the baby boy.

A drop of blood trickled down the middle claw and fell on the baby...

"This... this must be the first time... I lose an argument against you," Kushina spoke between coughs, her voice low and shaky.

"I told you not to work yourself up too much, Kushina... the boy needs a mother figure... " Minato said in an equally shaky voice.

"Yes but Minato... hurry *cough* I can't hold it for much longer... " Kushina whispered as a large all amount of coughs racked her figure, and with that, her concentration slipped, one chakra chain came loose...

And the Kyuubi's claw managed to reach the last few inches.

Both parents watched in horror as their son was skewered through his chest and stomach, all the way through his body and against the ritual stone the child was laying on with a clack. The baby barely had time to cry in pain before life had left it's fragile body. For Minato and Kushina, slightly splattered in their own baby's blood, their world shattered. Kushina instinctively tightened the hold of her chakra chains to the point where the Kyuubi's claw was forcefully brought out of the baby, but that did nothing to ease the pain they were feeling inside. Seeing their newborn baby die in a manner almost all adults hope not to was something that completely shattered their psyche. But it wouldn't stay that way for long.

The three caught sight of something moving towards the corpse of Naruto. It seemed to be a strand of flesh, dark red and black in color, moving like some kind of caterpillar towards the boy. As Minato, Kushina, and the Kyuubi watched, the former two losing blood and consciousness fast, the strand climbed up the side of the ritual stone, towards the stomach of the deceased baby, and into the hole made by the claw of the Kyuubi, where, unseen by the three, it settled into the cavity where his heart used to be. It quickly spread towards the baby's entire body, and before the very eyes of two surprised parents and a very shocked and angry Kyuubi, the wound on his torso began to regenerate, closing completely without a single scar moments later. And after just second, much to the relief of the two parents, the chest of the baby began to rise and fall, signaling that life had somehow returned to the young one. Without wasting any more time, Minato quickly finished the Eight Trigrams Seal, sealing the rest of the Kyuubi as well as a good amount of both his and Kushina's chakra inside the seal, summoned a scroll toad to keep the key safe, and finally passed away, along with his wife, silently thanking whatever it had been that had revived their son...

Naruto...

* * *

**_Timeskip: 12 years later._**

For Naruto Uzumaki, life was great. Walking out of his small apartment wearing long black baggy pants, black combat boots, a white tank-top with the Uzumaki spiral on the front, and a long, red-orange jacket over it (Imagine Trunks' clothes, but with the jacket reaching to his waist and clothes as described previously) and finally, to complete the getup, a blue Konoha hitai-ate proudly worn on the youth's forehead, he was ready for today.

Having graduated from the ninja academy just the other day, Naruto hurried there to see on which Genin team he would be. On the way, he thought about how lucky he was to be allowed to pass even without the ability to use chakra. See, during Naruto's time in the academy, it was found that Naruto had absolutely no chakra inside his body. Yes, he had chakra coils like all the others, but his were empty. However, this did not mean he couldn't protect himself, no sir. Through a spar with one of the taijutsu teachers in the academy, it was found that Naruto had ridiculous strength, speed, agility, and durability for a kid. In his third spar with the taijutsu teacher, he managed to fight him to a standstill, something none of the other students could manage yet. As the Genin exams were approaching, Naruto was apprehensive since his inability to use chakra signified that he wouldn't be able to do the usual necessary jutsu: the Henge, Kawarimi, and Bunshin. However, after a bit of looking around, Naruto discovered that the previous year's graduating class had a student by the name of Rock Lee who had a similar disadvantage to him: he wasn't adept at all in either ninjutsu or genjutsu, so he focused on taijutsu. If this Rock Lee could graduate with just taijutsu, then so could Naruto. Naruto still remembered the first day he met Lee...

* * *

**_Flashback, a week before..._**

_Naruto ran though the streets of Konoha, hoping to catch a glimpse of the one called Rock Lee. He had asked several people if they knew him, to which they responded with a no. Only after meeting with a jounin by the name of Kurenai had he gotten a lead. She had told him that Lee was usually with his jounin-sensei Maito Gai, working at one of the training grounds around Konoha. _

_Naruto quickly managed to find him by the sounds of flesh hitting wood. He stood on the sidelines and watched as Rock Lee pounded away at a wooden post as if his life depended on it, which, considering he was a ninja, it very much did. _

_It didn't take long for Lee to notice a presence around him. He turned to look at the newcomer and Naruto finally managed to get a good look at him. He had large eyes and even larger eyebrows, which immediately brought to his mind the nickname Bushy Brows. He had a bowl like haircut, wore a spandex green suit, leg warmers, ninja sandals, and long bandages wrapping from his hands to the middle of his forearm. His eyes were full of many emotions: love, happiness, devotion, determination, and many other good things. However, now they only showed confusion and a bit of wariness._

_"Who are you, and why are you here, stranger?" Lee asked._

_Naruto uncrossed his arms and moved away from the tree he was leaning against, walking closer to Lee._

_"My name's Naruto Uzumaki, and I've been looking for you, Lee-san." Naruto told him, in a voice that he hoped showed that he meant no harm._

_"And why have you been looking for me, Naruto-san?" Lee asked, his confusion growing._

_Naruto explained to him how he couldn't form chakra but that he was very strong and agile, similar to Lee. He also explained how he wanted to find Lee so that he could explain to Naruto how he became a Genin without ninjutsu or genjutsu._

_"Ah, alright, Naruto-san, I understand. See, when I was in the academy, I trained very hard to get my taijutsu up to great levels, since it was the only form of fighting I could work with. My determination to succeed, and the flames of youth that Gai-sensei has passed on to me made me work incredibly hard. I pushed my body to the limit. And after seeing the results of my training in a spar with one of the taijutsu mentors, they deemed me fit to become a Genin!" Lee exclaimed, his right hand forming into a fist and his eyes brimming with fire. _

_Naruto stared at Lee. He had been focused intently by his tale, and despite him not even being a graduate yet, he gave Lee an offer he couldn't refuse. _

_"Hey, Bushy Brows, how about you and I try our hands in a spar? Perhaps you could help me improve my taijutsu." Naruto said. _

_"Yosh, my youthful comrade, let us do battle!" Lee exclaimed, getting into his usual taijutsu pose with one hand behind his back and the other raised to neck level, palm inward. _

**_Flashback end..._**

* * *

Naruto was broken out of his trip down memory lane by the Academy appearing around the block. He quickly ran inside and to the usual meeting room of this year's graduating class. He found it to be mostly empty, however, save for Shino Aburame and Hinata Hyuuga sitting down at their usual seats. Deciding to calm himself, he walked nonchalantly towards his seat while giving his two classmates a wave. Shino nodded towards him in greeting, while Hinata blushed furiously and stuttered a greeting.

"G-good morning, Na-naruto-kun."

"Mornin' Hinata. Do you know which team you'll be in?"

"N-no, not at all..." the blushing Hyuuga stated.

"Ah, oh well, maybe you'll be on my team. That'd be cool..." Naruto sighed, hiding a smirk as he watched Hinata smile while blushing even redder.

"H-hai, it would." Hinata stuttered.

Naruto was no fool. He noticed how Hinata acted around him, and while he liked that she was interested in him, he was not very experienced with relationships.

Naruto got to his seat and looked out the window to his right. As more students filled the room, he waved to those that saluted him, ignored most, and sent a playful glare to one Sasuke Uchiha, who glared back in a similar playful manner before the Uzumaki grinned widely and the Uchiha smirked. During his time in the Academy, Naruto And Sasuke had what could be called a friendly rivalry. They both tried to get stronger than the other, but were still good friends. Despite the fact that Naruto had no chakra and could use no jutsu, at which Sasuke excelled, he was much stronger and faster than Sasuke, so he always won their taijutsu spars. So they helped each other as well. Naruto helped Sasuke become stronger and faster, and in return, Sasuke would explain the nature and effects of the jutsu he knew and had studied, as well as with work from the Academy.

Sasuke sat next to Naruto and said, "So, dobe (Dead Last), you ready for the missions that are coming?"

"You bet, teme (Bastard)! I'll be able to breeze through those missions!"

"Hn, just be ready for anything. Strength won't always be-"

"Sasuke-kun!" a shrill voice was heard.

"Oh man..." Sasuke sweatdropped, glancing at the door just as a pink haired girl with a Konoha hitai-ate as a bow for her hair bounded in and almost glomped Sasuke in a tight hug had he not put his hand out and held her at arm's length.

"Hello, Sakura..." he said with a sigh, annoyed as always with the pink haired fangirl.

Quickly sitting in the seat to Sasuke's right, since the one to his left was taken by Naruto, Sakura beamed at Sasuke until she looked over and noticed Naruto.

"Hello there, Naruto!"

"Hey, Sakura," Naruto said in a bored tone, "you ready for life as a ninja?"

"Of course," Sakura replied smugly, "I'll be able to conquer anything with Sasuke-kun by my side."

Sasuke visibly groaned.

A figure moved in front of Naruto, and when he turned, he found a pair of light blue, pupil-less eyes close to his own.

Too close to his own.

"Ah!" Naruto yelled, jumping back and almost smashing his head against the long desk behind him. He looked back at Ino Yamanaka's blonde haired and blue eyed form and suppressed a sigh of annoyance.

"Hello, Ino." said Naruto.

"Hey, Naruto-kun..." purred Ino, swaying her hips back and forth once, before continuing in a more sensual tone, "So, when are you gonna take me out on a date, huh?"

Naruto laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head. He didn't need to turn around to know that Hinata was glaring daggers at Ino, although Ino seemingly ignored her. Ino opened her mouth to continue, but before anything else could be said, the stragglers came in with their teacher Iruka behind them, making her move to their seat, albeit grudgingly.

"Morning, everyone."

"Morning Iruka-sensei," the class chorused, though some just looked at their teacher and let their eyes say hi.

Sighing, Iruka said, "Well, guys, this is it. The day you get chosen into your three-cell Genin teams. This is the last day I'll be your teacher, unless any of you get sent back by your Jounin-sensei. But for now, I'll just read off the teams."

Naruto didn't really pay attention to the teams. He just wanted to hear who he'd be with and be done.

As Iruka finished with team 6, Iruka said, "Team 7 will consist of Naruto Uzumaki... *Ino And Hinata leaned forward slightly in anticipation* Sasuke Uchiha... *Sasuke and Naruto shared a smirk with each other* And Sakura Haruno."

At this, many girls in the room visibly frowned while the pink haired kunoichi in question jumped up and cheered in absolute happiness. Naruto simply laughed at Sasuke's predicament while Sasuke's head slumped forward and he muttered, "I'm doomed..."

"Nah, come on Sasuke-teme, you still got me," Naruto said.

Sasuke glared at Naruto before allowing a smirk to appear on his face.

"Your Jounin-sensei will be Kakashi Hatake. Now, Team 8 will consist of Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame, and Hinata Hyuuga. Your Jounin-sensei will be Kurenai Yuhi."

Naruto looked up the row to Hinata and gave her an apologetic smile, to which she just shook her head with a smile of her own on her face.

Sasuke, noticing where Naruto was looking, said in a teasing voice, "Who's that, dobe? Your girlfriend?"

Naruto looked back at Sasuke with a smirk and said, "If I play my cards right, she just might be."

Sasuke stared at Naruto for a second before chuckling "Guess we'll see, Naruto."

"Team 9 is already in active duty. Therefore, Team 10 will consist of Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Choji Achimiki. The Ino-Shika-Cho trio, just like your fathers."

The trio didn't seem to be too annoyed at the teamup so it would be no problem.

"Good luck to you all in your upcoming missions, and may you carry the Will of Fire to the very end," Iruka finished, smiling at them all before exiting the classroom.

Now, all they had to do was wait...

However, after watching all the other teams leave and being there for another hour, Naruto was seething. How could someone who couldn't even be on time take them on missions?!

Getting a devious idea, he slowly got up. Sasuke, seeing Naruto's growing smirk and the mischievous look in his eye, shook his head.

"Don't tell me you plan on setting a prank for Kakashi-sensei, dobe."

"Hell yes I do. I'll teach him about being late to meeting us," said Naruto, rubbing his hands together. In a quick moment, he ran down to the blackboard, grabbed an eraser, and walked to the door, where he proceeded to balance the eraser on the crook between the door and the wall above it.

Frowning as Naruto walked back to his seat giggling, Sakura said, "Naruto, there's no way a Jounin is gonna fall for such a low trick."

Not five seconds had passed after her statement when the door creaked slowly open, Naruto watching in anticipation, and a tall man wearing a face mask, his hitai-ate covering his left eye and sporting gravity-defying silver hair walked in. A second later, the eraser fell, and two sets of eyes widened and a third pair closed with satisfaction as the eraser bounced off of the top of Kakashi's head with a small _plomp _and a puff of chalk particles.

The room was deadly quiet for a second until the loud laughter of a spiky-blonde haired boy broke it. Naruto was dying with laughter, not actually expecting his prank to work so well. Due to his laughter, though, he failed to notice the very same eraser being flung in his direction and because of that he yelped in pain and surprise as it hit him right in the forehead, making him fall from his seat. Sasuke chucked at his friend's dilemma until he noticed Kakashi looking at him with a calculating gaze.

"Ne, that hurt, damn it!" Naruto said, growling as he got up from his spot on the floor.

"I assume you're the Genin team assigned to me. Well, my first impression of you is... I hate you all," Kakashi said with an eye smile, causing all three Genin to sweatdrop. "Meet me on the roof pronto" he finished, before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura quickly got to the top of the building, where they found Kakashi standing there, lazily reading an orange book with the words, "Icha Icha Paradise" on the front cover. The Genin sat down on some steps, facing their sensei, and once settled, Kakashi closed his book and turned to them.

"Alright," said Kakashi, "Why don't we do some introductions? Say your likes, dislikes, hobbies, goals or dreams, and any other interesting things. Why don't we start with you, Pinky?" he finished, pointing at Sakura, who frowned slightly at the nickname.

"Well, my name is Sakura Haruno. I like the color pink, my friends, and... *glance at Sasuke*. My dislikes are people who are annoying *glance at Naruto*, those who take advantage of their friends, and fake people. My hobbies... I don't really have any, except reading. My goals are to be as great a kunoichi and medical ninja as the great Tsunade herself, and to try and marry a great ninja... *another glance at Sasuke*."

_'Great, a fangirl... but she does have a good goal. I'll need to break her out of that fangirl stage though...'_ thought Kakashi, sweatdropping. Pointing at Sasuke, he said, "Alright, Sunshine, you next."

Sasuke grunted and said, "My name's Sasuke Uchiha. My only like is my friend and sparring partner, Naruto. *Smile from Naruto* My dislikes are weaklings and fangirls. *Sakura lowers her head slightly* My hobbies are training and learning new jutsu. My goals are to kill the one man who killed my clan and to rebuild the Uchiha."

_'An avenger, eh? Well I'm the one who has to teach him, thanks to the damn council.'_ thought Kakashi, exasperated. "Alright, blondie, go ahead,"

With a large, fox smile, Naruto exclaimed, "My name's Naruto Uzumaki! My likes are ramen, people who like me, and a certain girl in our class. *Sasuke smirks knowingly* My dislikes are those who hurt others, people who dislike me without getting to know me, and people who hate ramen. My goal is to one day become Hokage!" *Exasperated sigh from Sakura*

_'So, sensei's son is a big dreamer. With enough knowledge, he could make it there easily.'_ thought Kakashi with a small smile under his mask.

"Alright, now that we've got that out of the way, meet me tomorrow at 7 in the morning sharp for your test." said Kakashi.

"What? But sensei, we already had our tests! It's how we became Genin!" said Sakura, confused.

"Yes, you have," Kakashi acknowledged, "however that was simply an academy exam. This test is to determine how much you've learned in the Academy. And just to warm you now, not many have passed my test, and those that do are very knowledgeable at being ninja. So, come tomorrow to training ground 7, and don't eat anything, or you'll probably puke it up. Ciao!" And with a wave, he disappeared in another cloud of smoke.

Naruto got up and said, "You guys want ramen? I'm paying. Call it a celebration for our team!"

Sakura got up and nodded with a smile, while Sasuke smirked and nodded also.

And with that, Team 7 left to enjoy the rest of their day together.

* * *

**Well, this was the first chapter of my story. Now, in following chapters, more explanations of Naruto's powers will pop up, so don't think he'll just get powers willy-nilly. So, you know the drill. Read, review, do all that jazz. Ja Ne!**


	2. Chapter 2: The Bell Test

**_Konohagure_****,****_ Training Ground 7, 7:03 AM... _**

Naruto jumped down from a tree and landed heavily on the ground, unknowingly causing a small crater on the ground he landed. In front of him were Sasuke and Sakura, the former sitting with his back to a tree, while the latter was practicing some kicks against the next to the one Sasuke was sitting against.

"Ohayo (Good Morning), Sasuke, Sakura!" Naruto said with a smile.

Sasuke greeted him with a nod and a mutter of, "Dobe" while Sakura smiled and said, "Ohayo, Naruto-san. How are you?"

"Doing well, just very hungry! What kind of test is this to make us starve?!" Naruto exclaimed with a frown and a growl of his stomach.

"Dunno, but I hope sensei gets here quickly." Sakura said with an equally hungry frown.

* * *

**_2 hours later... _**

"Ohayo" Kakashi said, appearing in a cloud of smoke.

"You're late, sensei!" Sakura exclaimed.

"Well you see, there were these two kids who had a cat stuck on a pole, and when the cat jumped away, I had to chase it and-"

"LIAR!"

Kakashi shrugged and said, "Well, team, today will be your first test. Now, I have with me two bells attached to my belt. To win, you must get the bells from me. The one who remains without a bell shall be tied to a stump and made to watch as his or her teammates eat lunch without them. Now this clock *Pulls out clock* will ring twice. Once when the test starts and once again when it ends. Ready? *Alarm rings* Begin!" With that, the three Genin jumped into the trees while Kakashi brought out his Icha Icha Paradise and began reading.

Naruto watched Kakashi begin to read and found something off about the test. _'Hang on, we're supposed to take the bells from him... but there's only two, meaning that only two of us would pass. But if that's the case, someone would naturally be eliminated... unless one of the ones who get the bell give theirs to the loser, as a self-sacrifice of sorts... I get it, teamwork!'_

With that thought, Naruto sped off through the trees, being careful with his landings so that the branches he landed on wouldn't break. When he spotted Sakura on a branch, he stealthily landed next to her, making her jump slightly.

"Sakura-san, have you figured out the true purpose of this test?" said Naruto, keeping his eyes on Kakashi.

"We're supposed to get the bells, aren't we?" Sakura said, tilting her head to the side slightly.

"It isn't just that. Notice how he only has two bells. Now put two and two together with that great brain of yours." Naruto said, looking at her.

It didn't take long for her to figure it out. When she did, she looked towards Naruto with slightly wide eyes.

"We need to get Sasuke," Naruto said simply.

Sakura nodded, and they bothe jumped around the trees, finding Sasuke minutes later.

"I assume you guys also figured it out?" asked Sasuke. Naruto simply nodded, so Sasuke asked, "Do you have a plan, dobe?"

"Damn right I do. Here's what we'll do..."

* * *

**_Meanwhile... _**

Kakashi was nearing the end of his book. With only half an hour left, he figured that after so much inactivity, they had decided to give up, which meant he'd have to go wheedle them out. Just as he was taking his book out, however, a cry of, "Katon: Goukakyuu No Jutsu!" shook him out of his stupor, and he watched as a great fireball fly towards him. However, his flight was short lived as he saw two kunai flying towards him. He moved towards the left to avoid the kunai but was unable to avoid the blur of black and yellow that came behind him and grabbed him into a Full Nelson.

"What the-!" exclaimed Kakashi, looking back with a wide eye.

"Gotcha!" yelled Naruto, "Sakura, Sasuke, now!"

In an instant, Sakura and Sasuke jumped towards the pair and reached for the bells. Kakashi attempted to break out of the hold Naruto had him in, but Naruto simply increased his strength output, holding him in place. Sasuke and Sakura's fingers were millimeters from the bells when Kakashi disappeared in a cloud of smoke, signaling he was a shadow clone. Naruto went wide eyed as Sasuke and Sakura crashed in midair, both letting out a groan as they landed on the unforgiving ground. Naruto landed heavily beside them and looked at the real Kakashi as he landed from a tree branch.

"You used Kawarimi to switch yourself with a Kage Bunshin, didn't you, Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto said, smirking a bit.

"Good job, Naruto. Your plan was rather well thought out." Kakashi said, just as the timer went off. The three Genin groaned, although Naruto already knew they had next to no chance of beating a Jounin. "So, test is over, and you all... pass." finished Kakashi with an eye smile.

It was eerily quiet for about three seconds as team 7 processed this. Then, three shouts of, "NANI (WHAT)?!" followed, coming from three very confused Genin.

Kakashi chucked and said, "As you probably already know, this test was simply to see if you could work together as a team and not just want a bell for your own selfish desire of passing. And I'm happy to say you passed with flying colors. You three are now officially Konoha ninja. Meet me tomorrow around 8 o' clock at the Hokage Tower. See ya!" And with that, he disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

"Alright! We did it guys!" Naruto exclaimed, throwing a fist in the air.

"Come on, dobe, was there ever a doubt? We have a Rookie of the Year Uchiha, a book smart Haruno, and a logical powerhouse Uzumaki. We're one of the best teams around." Sasuke said, hands in his pockets and a smirk on his face.

"Don't let this go to your head, teme." said Naruto playfully, "Just remember we're still Genin. There are powerful shinobi out there, even more powerful than us. But with Sakura's brain and stealth, my power, and you having a bit of both, we can overcome almost anything... together."

Sasuke and Sakura genuinely smiled at that and nodded, and by an unspoken consent, the three left, going to get the much needed rest they would need for the next day.

* * *

**And that's chapter 2! The team has passed Kakashi's bell test! What challenges await them?! How many of Naruto's powers has he awakened yet?! Well... I know, I just won't tell you :D Read and Review! Ja Ne!**

**By the way, translations:**

**Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu - Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique**

**Kawarimi - Body Replacement Technique**

**Kage Bunshin (no Jutsu) - Shadow Clone (Jutsu)**


	3. Chapter 3: The First C-Ranked Mission

**__****Alright, LADIES AND GENTS! Welcome to the third chapter of Revived at Birth, N&I! Now, I want to clarify some points that ****HobTheRobot**** brought to my attention. First, if you have any questions, advice, or just want to get to know the author, do send me a PM. Trust me, I'm not Kurama, I won't bite. Secondly, Mr. ****HobTheRobot**** also asked if Naruto was more like James Heller or the Mercer himself. To clarify, he's more like Mercer. The difference is that he didn't end up with amnesia since he was a newborn. He had no actual memories to begin with.**

**Also, in this chapter and the next, Naruto will show two skills. I'll explain more about them in the footnote of their respective chapter, but just saying it now, one is activated by a necessity, the other is a gut feeling. No more than that.**

**Now enjoy!**

* * *

**_Konohagure_****,****_ The Hokage Tower, a few weeks after Kakashi's bell test... _**

Team 7 and their Jounin-sensei were at the Hokage tower in front of the Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, after catching the demonic cat named Tora for the umpteenth time. They were watching as the poor cat had the living daylights squished out of it by its owner.

Naruto, deciding to take some initiative on the woman, said in a tentative voice, "Um... Ma'am?"

The chubby woman stopped her happy squealing and looked at Naruto saying, "Yes, young man?"

Continuing in the same cautious tone, Naruto said, "Have you wondered why Tora runs away so much?"

The woman thought for a moment then shook her head slightly.

"Ma'am, I think it's because you squeeze it so much. I mean, I can't tell you what the cat is truly thinking, but I myself certainly wouldn't like being throttled like that. Neither would any of us, I'm sure." Naruto said politely, gesturing to his team, who quickly shook their heads to add to his point.

The woman thought for a moment then looked at Tora with a questioning look. As a test, she hugged the cat but not tight enough to cripple it like before, just a small hug. Tora seemed ready to yell but after feeling how softly its master was hugging it, it purred and rubbed it's head contently against its owner's.

"Well, would you look at that? You're right, young man. May I get your name?" the woman said with a small smile.

Hesitantly, Naruto said, "Um... it's... Na-Naruto Uzumaki."

The woman's smile widened, and she said, "So, you're the young boy who everyone scorns. Well, you're definitely not as bad as everyone thinks. You're alright with me," she finished, ruffling his hair.

Naruto stared with a surprised gaze. Out of all reactions, that was not one he was expecting. After a second, his face split in a wide smile and he bowed slightly at the woman, saying, "Thank you very much, Ma'am. You don't know how much I appreciate that."

The woman smiled and, with Tora in tow, left the tower. Sakura was confused as to why people scorned Naruto and wondered at his reaction, but decided to ask later.

"Well then, looks like you just solved one of the Rookie 12's most difficult problems. We'll have to talk about a party later for that," Hiruzen said, causing Sakura to giggle, Sasuke to smirk, and Naruto to laugh out loud. "Now then, we have a number of missions here for you. It seems some of the residents in the eastern district need their houses painted, and also around the western one-"

"Enough!" Naruto yelled, slamming his hand down on the table. "Old man, these aren't missions, they're just chores! We may be Genin, but we were taught things like infiltration, stealth, kunai and shuriken throwing, ninjutsu, taijutsu, and a whole bunch of other things! None of these 'missions' do anything to challenge that! How are we supposed to grow as shinobi and kunoichi if we aren't challenged?!"

The group stared at Naruto, until Sasuke cleared his throat and said, "Despite my teammate's method of letting things be known, I'm inclined to agree, Hokage-sama. This isn't something fit for shinobi, even if one of us is planning to be Hokage in the future. Plus, I assumed that these D-ranked missions were to test our teamwork. Haven't we proved that by now?"

Sarutobi looked at the team then at Kakashi and said, "Well, Kakashi, what do you think? You're their sensei."

"With all due respect, Hokage-sama, if my team believes they're ready, I'm willing to give them a chance. They more than proved themselves during the test I gave them." Kakashi said, looking at the three Genin with an eye smile.

"Alright!" Naruto exclaimed, jumping up in joy.

"Very well then," Hiruzen said, smiling at Naruto's antics, "I shall give you a C-Ranked mission. I was planning on giving it to Team 9, but since you're available, you can take it. You shall escort a bridge builder by the name of Tazuna to Nami no Kuni and protect him from thugs and robbers. In fact, he should be coming- Speak of the devil," said Hiruzen as Tazuna stumbled in.

Tazuna was a regular man, about the same height as Kakashi. He wore a sleeveless v-neck shirt with an obi, pants and a pair of sandals, along with a pointy hat. Tazuna gave a look at the team and said, "These are the shrimps that are supposed to protect me? Please! They don't look strong enough to fight their way out of a cobweb! I asked for strong ninja and this is what-"

He never got to finish since a kunai skimmed the tip of his pointy hat with such speed that nobody but Kakashi and Naruto, who launched it, saw where it went. Then, with a speed neither of his teammates had seen from him, he appeared in front of Tazuna... upside down!

Bright blue eyes locking onto the dark, bespectacled eyes of Tazuna, who had to look up to be able to see the young Genin eye to eye. Naruto said, "Listen, Tazuna, _sir_, I don't care where you're from or what kind of ninja you have in your village, if you have any to begin with, but I will not stand for any kind of disrespect of me or my team, especially my teammates. The only reason you aren't any more severely injured right now is because you're the client we're supposed to be your escort. Now, you paid for a C-Ranked Mission and the Hokage has given you a team to complete a _C-Ranked Mission. _If you'd wanted stronger ninja, you should have paid higher. Now, do you still want us to escort you there or what?" Naruto asked, forcefully removing the kunai stuck to the door behind Tazuna, who looked at the upside down Naruto with slight fear, something that increased when he noticed Naruto's eyes flicker from bright, electric blue to dark red with slit-like pupils.

"Ye-yes, of course. You guys can escort me there. You certainly seem to have a lot of spunk... and chakra if I remember correctly, given how you're hanging upside down like that for this long." Tazuna said, slightly in fear and mostly in amazement that such a young person could have this kind of personality.

Naruto's eyes darkened a bit before he said, "No sir, this isn't chakra. Truth is, I don't have any. For me, it's all manpower."

Tazuna nodded before turning to the rest of the people gathered, all of which had some modicum of shock showing on their face from Naruto's actions and his ability to hold on to the ceiling without chakra. Kakashi, however, noticed that Naruto wasn't directly standing on the ceiling but had a multitude of tiny tendrils holding on to the ceiling. Being a good sensei though, he decided to keep shut on that and let Naruto explain it to his teammates. He re-directed his attention back to Tazuna when this one said, "Meet me tomorrow at 10 AM at the Village Gates so we can head out."

"Understood. You three, go get yourselves prepared and get plenty of rest. Naruto, do try to keep an eye on your emotions." Kakashi said. Naruto frowned slightly and was about to say something when he noticed Kakashi give him a small wink that basically meant, 'Well done nevertheless.'

The team separated and went to their respective houses to prepare for the mission coming ahead.

* * *

**_The Following Morning, Naruto's Apartment, 9:00 AM... _**

The ring of the alarm clock woke Naruto up like a splash of water. He jumped up on his bed, excited about his first C-Ranked mission. He quickly ran to the bathroom to do his morning routine and came back out ten minutes later refreshed and ready for the day. He went to the kitchen and set a cup of instant ramen to cook while he got changed.

Walking to a full length mirror on his wall, he looked at his naked form and decided to have a change of wardrobe for today. A certain outfit suddenly popped into his mind, confusing Naruto a bit. But after a minute of thinking, he decided to go with it, despite the fact that he hadn't seen that outfit anywhere before. Focusing on the details of the clothes, he released some of his power and watched as red and black tendrils wrapped around his body before settling, and the blonde was finally able to check out his outfit.

He wore three clothes on his torso: a white, untucked button up shirt, a plain grey hoodie over this with the hood down, and a black jacket over the hoodie which sported a red tribal marking on the upper back. The neckline of the button up shirt was hanging over the neck of the black jacket. From the waist down, he wore plain faded jeans and black shoes.

Naruto gave himself a good look and had to admit it looked like a pretty good outfit. The jacket looked sturdy enough to not rip and he doubted the jeans would prevent him from moving normally. Of course, only he knew these weren't actually clothes, just biomass from his own body. He still remember how he first found out he could shapeshift...

* * *

**Flashback, Three years ago, (Naruto's 9 Years old)**

_Naruto awoke late morning one Sunday and went through his morning rituals: take a quick cold shower, brush teeth, attempt to comb his unruly blonde hair, and make breakfast, all while naked. He wasn't worried about anybody seeing him, since most people hated him anyways and no one came to visit him in the mornings. Today, however, life was going to change. _

_Naruto heard a knock on the door and then the doorknob turning. A million thoughts raced thought his head, the main one being, 'I'M NAKED! WHERE'S MY DAMN PANTS AND JACKET?!'_

_No sooner had he thought that, however, that he felt a strange sensation over his body and, looking down, noticed that he was fully clothed, boots and all. He looked up in time to see the Sandaime Hokage looking at him with a small smile. _

_"Ah, Naruto, good to see you're awake. Listen, I'm free of paperwork for today so I was wondering if you'd like to accompany me and my grandson Konohamaru to the park." Sarutobi Hiruzen said. _

_"Jeez, Jiji, could you at least wait a few seconds before coming in? What if I'd been naked?" Naruto said defensively, before grinning widely. "But sure, the park sounds great!"_

_Hiruzen chuckled as he watched Naruto gulp down his instant ramen and join him at the door. What he did not know was that Naruto's mind was working a mile a minute, trying to understand what the hell just happened. Had he... shapeshifted?_

* * *

**Flashback end... **

That day, Naruto went through a whole lot of ideas on outfits before picking his usual 'baggy pants, white shirt, and jacket' combo. Now, however, he figured he'd found a new favorite outfit. He would have continued to stare at himself in the mirror, but his stomach told him of its need for ramen! Therefore, he went to the kitchen and ate his food before gathering his ninja tools and jumping out of his window towards the Village Gates.

* * *

**_Village Gates, 9:45 AM... _**

As Naruto approached the massive Gates, he could see the shapes of his teammates. Sasuke appeared to be leaning against one of the open doors while Sakura was leaning forward in front of him, seemingly trying to flirt with him.

Naruto approached the two and gave his usual upbeat greeting, to which they replied tiredly.

"Oi, dobe, I like the new clothes. They suit you well." Sasuke said, eyeing the jacket.

Sakura looked at Naruto fully and had to agree with Sasuke. Naruto actually looked quite hot! Well, as hot as a 12 year old could be. She was sure that if her friend Ino had been there, she would have been panting like a dog.

Naruto stared back at Sakura until she startled. Seeing that she had been caught staring, she chuckled before saying, "Can't believe I'm saying this, Naruto-kun, but Sasuke-kun is right, you look positively stunning. Ino would kill to have you now!"

Naruto frowned slightly at that last sentence and said, "Honestly, I'm not interested in Ino at all. I have my eyes on someone else."

Before Sakura could ask who it was, though, there was a poof of smoke and Kakashi appeared with Tazuna and he was... on time!

"Kakashi-sensei... you're on time!" Sakura exclaimed, stunned that such a thing was possible.

Kakashi eye smiled before saying, "Of course, Sakura. I may be late to practice sometimes but missions are important. Now, is everyone ready? Oh, by the way, Naruto, *Turns to Naruto* love the outfit. Looks quite fetching."

The team turned as one towards the Gates and began walking out in formation, with Naruto in front of Tazuna, Sasuke and Sakura on both sides, and Kakashi behind them. Soon, the Gates were out of sight.

* * *

**_Back In Konoha, the Hyuuga Compound, same time and date..._**

Hinata was just waking up, and went to the showers to prepare herself for the day. As she looked through her drawers for a clean shirt, her eyes found something else, and with a longing look, she pulled out from a vase a white rose with a note attached to it. The note read:

_I'll be leaving for Nami No Kuni in the morning. Wishing to see you when I come back. I'll send you a signal of my return; meet me at the Hokage monument then. _

_N.U._

She didn't need to guess too much to know who N.U. was. The only one from their class, where she'd found the flower and note, who had those initials was none other than her classmate and crush Naruto Uzumaki.

Just thinking that he wanted to see her made her giddy enough to want to dance around the compound. She had always hoped that he would notice her, but she was far too shy to talk to him directly. While he had talked with her plenty of times, she never managed to get to say what she felt. Now, however, she was happy that he was taking the initiative. She hoped he could cure her of her shyness around people, and that perhaps he'd make her stronger.

Breaking out of her stupor, she put the rose back in its vase and the note under it. Then, finishing with her clothes, she headed out to meet her team with a new determination in mind.

* * *

**And that marks the end of the chapter. Now to clarify:**

**Yes, Naruto's new outfit is Alex Mercer's regular outfit. The explanation as to why will come in later chapters, just not anytime soon.**

**No, this will not be a harem. Some instances of NaruIno and even NaruSaku, but nothing major. Mainly NaruHina.**

**Also, Naruto's shapeshifting abilities aren't limited to just anyone he absorbs. Anything he can think of, as long as it is detailed and he has enough biomass to achieve, he will do. Hence why he could transform his body to Alex's clothes. I mean, although in the games we're limited to the absorption, I figure that the virus is more open than that since Heller could create his jacket practically out of nowhere (and what an awesome jacket it is!).**


	4. Chapter 4: New Abilities and Discoveries

**Alright, people! This is chapter 4. Nothing much to say here except that Naruto will find out two of his and Alex's abilities in this chapter. Read on to find out!**

**Author's Note (8/10/2013): Alright guys, I fixed the Kage Bunshin slip up.**

* * *

**_With Team 7, two days after leaving Konoha... _**

Naruto couldn't be happier right now. He didn't have to stand the dirty looks, sneers, or whispering of the citizens of Konohagure. All that there was was the sounds of nature, his friends, their sensei, and their client, who had started opening up a bit more to them.

Things, however, were about to change.

As the team passed a clearing, only a few minutes away from the point where they would catch a boat to get to Nami no Kuni, Kakashi spotted a puddle of water, smack dab in the middle of the clearing. Kakashi's senses immediately went into overdrive, something Naruto noticed.

Looking at the puddle of water, Naruto could feel something strange about it, almost as if it weren't really there. Deciding now would be a good time to check out one of his experiments, he closed his eyes and focused biomass into them. As soon as he was done, he opened them back up and was startled at the change. Nearly everything around him was now tinted blue, with certain exceptions where he could see small specks of orange here and there. Looking back at his team, he noticed how they seemed to be colored orange, almost as if they had some kind of aura. Realizing that this granted him the ability to see heat, he dubbed it Thermal Vision.

Sasuke and Sakura, meanwhile, were slightly shocked and completely confused when Naruto turned around. The reason being they could see that his eyes had turned from their usual bright blue to a golden color. His pupils were still there, the only difference was the color of the area around the pupils.

Turning back to the pool of water, Naruto could clearly see a large amount of heat radiating off of it. He moved forward and experimentally splashed the puddle with his foot, but he found no change in the heat signature. Shrugging, he deactivated his thermal vision and walked forward past the puddle, and as soon as that happened, the puddle burst, separating Naruto from the rest of his team. From it, Naruto saw two ninja appear, each wielding a claw-like weapon on their hand, one of them having it on his right hand, the other on his left, and the two claws were connected by a rather sharp-looking chain.

Dashing forward, the ninja engaged Naruto, who began dodging their moves as fast as he could, having quite a few close calls.

Meanwhile, the rest of Team 7 had to deal with a Mizu Bunshin of the brothers. They charged at Sasuke and Sakura, but disappeared and reappeared behind Kakashi, who soon found himself wrapped by the chain holding the claws together.

"One down," the ninja said simultaneously, and pulled the chain, causing Kakashi to be cut up into pieces.

"KAKASHI-SENSEI!" Sakura screamed, watching in fear as her sensei's body parts landed on the floor.

"Next one..." the two ninja said, dashing towards Sakura. Before they could catch her, however, Sasuke jumped in the air and pulled out two shuriken and a kunai. He threw the first shuriken and watched as the ninja on the left blocked it with his claw. Smirking, Sasuke threw the next shuriken directly at the chain connecting the claws together, causing it to be moved close to one of the nearby trees. He then threw the kunai, catching the chain in one of the loops and sticking it to the tree.

"Dammit," said one of the ninja, pulling against the kunai, "it's stuck! Should we disconnect?"

The second ninja was about to answer, but before he could, he suddenly disappeared in a splash of water. The first ninja's eyes widened before he too splashed away.

"Nice throwing, Sakura," Kakashi said, walking out from the shadows of two trees.

"Kakashi-sensei! You're alive!" said Sakura, beyond relieved.

"Yes I am, but I wonder how long your teammate will be able to say the same," Said Kakashi, looking over to where Naruto was. The three others followed his line of sight to see Naruto still furiously dodging the claws of the two ninja.

Naruto wasn't faring all that well against the two ninja. Sure, he'd managed to get a few hits in and, with his strength, it was enough to push them back enough for him to catch his breath, but those two were relentless! Soon, the two ninja saw an opening and, using their chain, they dashed at Naruto, aiming to wrap him around his torso and rip him in two. Naruto, however, had other ideas. He ducked low, and the chain almost managed to pass over him without harm.

Keyword being, _almost. _

Unfortunately, the ninja duo managed to wrap the chain around his left arm. And with the resounding _splotch _of flesh being split apart, Naruto's arm was unceremoniously ripped off up to his bicep.

There was a resounding silence in the forest...

Then, the dam broke. Sakura screamed in fear, Sasuke and Kakashi yelled out their teammate's name, Tazuna yelled in surprise, the ninja duo laughed, and Naruto... he just looked at the ground holding the stump where his arm used to be, trying to hold in a yell of pain.

Slowly however, his senses returned to the battle at hand, and he yelled as he felt a burning sensation pass through his body. His friends and adversaries watched as a red aura began coming from Naruto. He then stood up, to the surprise of his teammates, and turned to the ninja who ripped his arm off, who were completely surprised by the ninja's change in appearance. Where there once was electric blue, now there was a piercing red. And his teeth had grown, becoming sharp fangs.

Naruto looked at them both, anger clear in his face, while his teammates and company looked on in shock.

Then Naruto spoke two simple words, "**You're dead..."**

And just like a flash, he disappeared from the sight of the two ninja, leaving them stunned at his speed. Before the two could form coherent words, Naruto reappeared behind them, and punched them both at the nape of the neck. With that punch alone, the two ninja flew from the tree branch they were standing on, landing hard on the unforgiving ground. From just how they looked, Kakashi could tell that one of the ninja was clearly dead, if the grey matter leaking from the hole on the back of his head was anything to judge by. The other seemed to be on the edge of consciousness, just having enough strength to lift his head up.

In another quick flash, Naruto suddenly appeared behind the ninja who was just barely alive, grabbing him by his neck with his remaining right hand and squeezing slowly.

"Naruto, stop!" Kakashi yelled at his student.

Naruto looked up, making eye contact with his sensei. A flicker of recognition passed through Naruto's eyes, and suddenly his eyes went back to their regular blue. His claws went back to normal nails, his fangs shrinking into normal teeth. Soon, he dropped the man, who moaned in pain at the random drop.

"Sorry, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, letting his head drop.

"Ne, Ne, it's alright. Just remember what I told you before," Kakashi said.

"Yeah, keep control of your emotions."

"Correct. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some interrogation to do-" Kakashi began, but Naruto interrupted him quickly.

"No, Kakashi-sensei, let me."

"What are you talking about, Naruto?" Kakashi quickly asked.

"Just a gut feeling..." Naruto said, looking at the surviving ninja of the duo with glazed eyes.

Naruto didn't even know why he was doing this. It's was like an instinct, something that came to him as he was trying to survive. As if by some kind of unseen force, he moved forward and grabbed the enemy ninja by the neckline of the shirt he was wearing. Pulling him up, he grabbed his head and pulled it back, leaning the ninja against a tree. As soon as he grabbed a kunai from his pocket, the others knew what he was doing. Kakashi wanted to jump forward and stop him, but he decided to put his faith in his student. Sasuke and Sakura both averted their eyes, while Tazuna's eyes widened.

Without any kind of remorse etched in his face, Naruto quickly ran the kunai across the ninja's throat, opening a very deep and very wide gash. The ninja gave a gargled scream before his body went limp and fell to the ground, quickly forming a pool of blood. Then, Team 7 watched in astonishment and horror as black and red tendrils sprouted from Naruto's body, reaching the body of the ninja. Once there, the tendrils began to rip apart the man and convert his body into biomass, which was being quickly absorbed by Naruto's body. Once a tendril retracted into Naruto's body again, the spot there shifted slightly before becoming a part of his clothes again.

While this was going on, Naruto was kneeling, bent over and holding his head in pain as an influx of memories raced through his brain before the man's consciousness was compressed into a node inside his brain. After a few moments, Naruto opened his eyes and found himself kneeling in a pool of blood. Slowly getting up, he turned around to face his team, looking at their shocked faces. In a monotonous voice, he said,

"This guy was one of the two Demon Brothers. Kakashi-sensei, I assume you're familiar with them. They were hired by a nukenin by the name of Zabuza Momochi, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. And... they were after our client, Tazuna." He finished, pointing at Tazuna, who was sweating bullets.

The entire team looked at Tazuna accusingly, while said bridge builder looked to be a deer caught by headlights. Finally relenting, he told them all the history of Nami no Kuni and what happened when Gatō came. He explained how he was building the bridge so that Nami no Kuni could trade and get back to it's feet. However, Gatō wanted to kill him for this since the completing of the bridge meant the end of his tyranny over the island. After his long explanation, Team 7 was quiet as they thought deeply on the possible outcomes of this mission.

Sakura decided to break the silence by saying, "Kakashi-sensei, I think we should go back. We weren't trained for this."

"Indeed," Kakashi said, "I didn't train you for this. This mission is clearly an A-Ranked mission. This is way out of your league."

Naruto looked incredulously at the two before exclaiming, "Are you two dense?! We can't just leave Nami no Kuni like it is! If we drop the mission now, the country could easily die! I cannot ignore a cry of pain like that, Kakashi-sensei!"

"I agree with the dobe, Kakashi-sensei. If Nami no Kuni needs our help, and we have the power to help, shouldn't we?" Sasuke said with a frown.

"Not when you're just fresh Genin. Genin aren't supposed to take on A-Ranked missions" Kakashi reasoned.

"... Yeah, well, this Genin will, Kakashi-sensei." said Naruto in a low voice, startling the silver-haired Jounin.

"You what?" Kakashi said.

"I said that if you won't, I will. You once told us that those who abandon the mission are trash, but those that abandon their comrades are worse than trash. Well, right now, Tazuna and Nami no Kuni are my comrades, and I'm not abandoning them. Come on, Tazuna, let's go." stated Naruto, gesturing to Tazuna, who followed after the retreating Genin.

Sasuke and Sakura looked at Naruto's retreating figure, then at Kakashi, who was looking at Naruto with a calculating gaze. Finally, Kakashi eye-smiled and said, "Naruto certainly acts like a grownup. He's a truly selfless young man. Come on, you two. If we let him go at this alone, who knows what he'll get himself into."

And with that, the remaining two members of Team 7 and their Jounin-sensei ran after the young Genin and the client they needed to protect.

* * *

**Well, guys, that's chapter 4. Now, keep in mind, I won't have Naruto developing to quickly. I've already mapped out where he will get some of his powers and even chakra.**

**As for the instinct to absorb Gozu, Naruto will explain it next chapter.**


	5. Chapter 5: Major Surprises

**Hello there! And welcome back to Revived at Birth. Now, I need to address some things in the reviews...**

** Guest: There's plenty of stories that deal with Naruto getting Blacklight. That's why there's a whole freakin' section made for them. Not really anything new. Now, if you're gonna be flaming, at least have the decency to pinpoint what dang story is so similar to mine. I've read plenty of 'Naruto acquires the Blacklight Virus' stories, but as far as I know, none of those are like mine. Otherwise, buzz off.**

** Mastermind and Spider-Fox93: Yes, he will have Alex's and Heller's Blacklight abilities. However, he will also develop his own. All in due time, guys and girls, all in due time.**

** Firebird0315 & Skywolf99: Read the chapter to answer your question. **

**Now on to the story!**

* * *

It didn't take long for Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura to catch up with Naruto and Tazuna, but it _was _a longer distance than they'd thought the two had traversed.

Once they caught sight of Naruto and Tazuna, the three Konoha ninja were surprised to see that Naruto was sitting on the ground in the lotus position, as if meditating. Next to him was Tazuna, who was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed, although he looked a bit nervous.

Tazuna looked up once Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura reached them, and said, "Oh, good, you came along. Naruto's been sitting there for the last 5 minutes doing nothing but meditating. I figured I would as well, but it's not easy."

Kakashi walked up to him and asked, "Did he say what he's doing? I assume he isn't just meditating for shits and giggles."

Tazuna shook his head and said, "Nope, not at all. I did see some black and red tendrils move around his body once in a while, but other than that, he's been like a statue."

Kakashi looked at Naruto and could practically sense his concentration, so he glanced at his other two students and said, "Alright, guys, take a rest. Let's just wait 'till he gets up from there. We have enough time. You too, Tazuna," Kakashi said, turning back to their client, "You need to be calm. Having you being nervous about every little thing won't help us protect you. In fact, it'll make us even more nervous than you." With that, Kakashi took out his famous little orange book and began reading. Sasuke shrugged and jumped up onto a tree branch, leaned against the tree trunk, and closed his eyes to take a rest, occasionally stealing glances at Naruto. Sakura brought out a book from her backpack and began to read while sitting between the roots of a tree. And Tazuna… well, he remained slightly nervous, but also sat and decided to think things over.

Five more minutes later, the entire group could sense some kind of tension in the air. They all looked at Naruto, who seemed to be struggling with something. Sweat was coming off of him in droves, and he was gritting his teeth, whether in concentration or pain, no one could tell.

After another minute, and to the shock of the entire group, tendrils began to sprout from the stump of Naruto's missing left arm. As they watched in fascination, the tendrils began winding around each other before they settled into the vague form of an arm. Then, more tendrils began to sprout from the already settled tendrils, and covered his left side completely. When the tendrils retracted, the entire group was shocked to see that Naruto's left arm was back, good as new!

Naruto's face seemed to relax before he opened his eyes and stood up. Looking around, he wasn't surprised to see that his teammates, sensei, and client were all staring at him with wide eyes. Truth be told, he had hoped that he wouldn't have to use his regeneration in this mission. He didn't want to show anyone what he was able to do just yet. Not to mention growing back an entire arm was difficult when the most he ever regenerated was a finger that he had cut once when practicing with some kunai. It hadn't been a pleasurable experience; hell, it hurt like a bitch the first time it happened. But afterwards, he got more and more hurt in his training and he noticed how his injuries healed almost instantly. He had no clue why, so he chalked it off to a bloodline he had, until he stumbled across his ability to shape shift. Now, even he was curious as to why he was this way, but decided not to think about it too much. Besides, he had a mission to complete.

"Are you guys done gawking?" asked Naruto in a somewhat exasperated voice.

"Naruto…" said Sasuke in a hesitant voice, surprising Naruto since a) he'd only called Naruto by his name when they were younger and started to know each other, and b) he was hesitant to ask something. "Did you just grow back an entire arm?!"

Glancing at his left arm, Naruto said, "Yeah, I did. Now, I know you'll want to ask me questions and all, but we're in the middle of a mission. So I'd rather wait until later to answer them."

"No, dobe, we're answering now! How the hell did you do that?!" Naruto was surprised at Sasuke's almost enraged tone, while Sasuke was thinking, _'I don't understand! How could the dobe have such an ability? If I had that, I could beat Itachi easily! And the dobe and I have trained together since we were young kids! So why haven't I known about it or developed it?!'_

Naruto looked at Sasuke with a calculating gaze, then said, "I said, later, teme. Now, Tazuna, you mentioned that we were allowed to stay at your place, correct?" Tazuna nodded dumbly. "Well then, I'll explain there. Now, can we go, Kakashi-sensei? We shouldn't waste any more time. The sooner we finish this… the sooner we can go home."

Kakashi got up and shook off his shock. "Well, you heard the man. I usually don't like being ordered what to do, but he's right, we should get a move on. Everyone, back in formation."

Sakura and Sasuke nodded and got on both sides of Tazuna, while Naruto lazily got in front and started walking.

Minutes later, the group reached a body of water where they found a man waiting on a boat large enough for them all. The ride to the island was rather uneventful, with the exception of the glances Naruto was getting from his teammates along the way.

Once on land, the group began traveling towards Tazuna's house. Along the way, Naruto heard a ruffling in the bushes, and quickly flicked a kunai there, startling a white rabbit which quickly hopped out of the bushes and away from them.

In an angry and exasperated tone, Sakura yelled, "What the hell, Naruto?!"

Naruto decided to ignore her. Glancing at Kakashi, Naruto could see that he had reached the same conclusion. That rabbit's fur was pure white. That was far too rare for the weather at that time.

"Everybody get down!" yelled Kakashi, pushing Tazuna to the ground. Naruto grabbed Sakura and brought her down, and Sasuke dropped quickly, just in time to avoid a very large broadsword that flew over their heads and got stuck on a tree a few paces away from Kakashi and Tazuna.

Quickly getting up, Naruto looked towards the head cleaver and noticed a man already there, grabbing the gigantic sword by the hilt and lifting it with little to no trouble at all. He sported spiky black hair and had a number of bandages wrapping around his lower face and neck, similar to Kakashi's mask. He also wore a sideways hitai-ate with the sign of Kirigakure.

"Well, well, well, seems this bunch is quite aware of their surroundings. Or at least two of the group." He said in a low voice. "Now then, my target is the old man. Hand him over, and none of you get hurt."

"Zabuza Momochi," said Kakashi, getting up along with Tazuna, "known as the Demon of the Hidden Mist, and the wielder of Kubikiribōchō. Killed over 100 before making Genin."

Sakura gulped at the last line while Sasuke looked incredulously at Zabuza. Naruto just stared at his enemy and his sensei having a standoff.

"And you're Copycat Kakashi, the man who's been said to have copied over a thousand jutsu. _Kill or Capture by any means necessary_, as your Bingo Book description states." Said Zabuza, getting into a stance.

"Guys, protect the client," barked Kakashi at the three Genin, who quickly surrounded Tazuna.

Smirking under his bandages, Zabuza brought one hand to chest level and made the ram hand sign with one hand and brought the other high over his head with fingers pointed at the sky, while saying, "**Kirigakure no Jutsu!** (**Hidden Mist Jutsu**)"

Almost immediately, a thick mist began moving towards them, making it almost impossible to see. Naruto and Sasuke got closer to each other to whisper a strategy, while Sakura inched closer to Tazuna so as to protect him better.

Kakashi looked around for a second, then grabbed his hitai-ate and pushed it up, revealing a single Sharingan.

Noticing his sensei's movement, Naruto looked over at him, as did Sasuke, the latter of whom was shocked beyond shock that his sensei had a Sharingan.

_'But... how can that be?! I thought you needed to be an Uchiha to possess the Sharingan! Could he possibly be...?' _thought Sasuke.

"Don't worry guys, I won't let anyone from my team die," said Kakashi, throwing them an eye smile.

"Brave words, Kakashi," said Zabuza, his voice impossible to pinpoint in the mist, "but can you back it up?"

Suddenly, Zabuza was right inside the circle made by the three Genin, swinging his sword wildly in a circle above his head. But before he could swing at Tazuna, his chest was suddenly met by Naruto's foot, and with a grunt, he stumbled back a few feet.

_'Damn! How can a shrimp like him have that much strength?!' _thought Zabuza in shock.

Following his student's attack, Kakashi suddenly appeared in front of Zabuza and began trading blows, with him using a kunai to prevent Zabuza's sword from chopping him to pieces.

After a minute which felt like an hour to the Genin and Tazuna, Kakashi moved back and began doing hand signs. However, Zabuza threw a couple of shuriken at him, making him jump back and land on the body of water behind him. At that point, Zabuza quickly appeared next to him.

"Gotcha! **Suirō no Jutsu! **(**Water Prison Jutsu)**" Zabuza yelled in triumph. Immediately, the water under Kakashi rose and covered him in a bubble of water, preventing him and Zabuza from moving.

"And now, for the brats and the old man! **Mizu Bunshin! **(**Water Clone**) " Zabuza exclaimed, and a second later a perfect copy of Zabuza formed from the water underneath him.

"Now, my clone… sic 'em!" Zabuza said, but before the clone could move, a number of shuriken hit it, thanks to Sasuke, making it dispel. "Grrr…" growled Zabuza, and created three more clones.

But just like the first, those three also dispelled, courtesy of two of Naruto's kunai and one of Sakura's.

"Don't think beating us will be easy!" yelled Naruto to Zabuza. "We might be Genin, but we are a damn good team! Right guys?"

"Hell yeah!" exclaimed Sakura.

"Hn," was all that Sasuke said, although a shadow of a smirk was playing on his face.

"You brats have spunk, I'll give you that, but do you really think you can take on me?! Don't make me laugh! Without your sensei, you're nothing!" Zabuza said, looking back at the Water Prison, upon which he had to do a double take. "What?! Where did he…"

"Sorry, Zabuza, were you looking for me?" Kakashi asked from right behind him. Before he could either react or respond, Kakashi had already kicked him hard in the air.

"Damn it!" exclaimed Zabuza, twisting in mid-air. As he landed, though, he heard a cry of, "**Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu!** (**Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique**)" and his anticipation turned to fear as he looked up to see a great dragon with red eyes made of water crash directly on him, making him fly back with a cry of pain and crash on a tree.

"And now, it's over, Zabuza!" Kakashi yelled, making three quick hand signs and charging elemental chakra into his hand. "**Raikiri!** Now you die!"

However, just before he could dash forward and finish it, everyone minus Tazuna noticed a number of objects flying through the air, and suddenly, Zabuza slumped over, two senbon needles sticking out of two different spots on his neck.

"Huh, whadaya know, he did die…" a feminine voice said, and a moment later, with a swirl of mist, someone else appeared next to Zabuza.

Kakashi, not taking any chances, walked up and checked Zabuza's pulse. Turning back to his team, he gave them a look that basically screamed, 'Whoever this is, they're right.'

The hunter nin (Kakashi figured he or she was just that considering the mask) simply said in the same feminine voice, "I appreciate your help in capturing Zabuza. I don't think I could have taken him on my own. I am afraid that I must take him away, though. I can't have you stumbling upon any of my village's secrets." And with that, the hunter nin grabbed Zabuza's body and Kubikiribōchō and disappeared in a whirl of mist.

_'Something's off here…' _thought Kakashi, turning back around to his team and lowering his hitai-ate so that it covered his Sharingan again. He gave them an eye smile, but before he could take a step, he suddenly collapsed on the ground.

"Kakashi-sensei!" exclaimed the three Genin, rushing towards their teacher. Upon reaching him, Sakura checked him.

"He's just exhausted, thank Kami. Mr. Tazuna," she said, turning to Tazuna, "our sensei needs to rest and recover before he can be of any help."

Tazuna smiled and said, "Yes, of course. I would be honored to have you stay at my house. Come, follow me." And with that, the entire group walked off to Tazuna's, Naruto and Sasuke half dragging, half carrying their sensei over their shoulders.

After a few minutes, they approached a house, where Tazuna knocked. A few second later, the door opened, and a woman who seemed to be in between her twenties and thirties came out. She had long dark hair, and was wearing a pink shirt whose collar and end of the sleeves were dark pink, dark blue pants and sandals.

"Ah, Tsunami! Look here! These are the ninja who protected me in coming here." Said Tazuna happily, moving to the side to show the woman now identified as Tsunami the three ninja and their passed-out sensei.

"Oh! Well hello there! You must be mighty brave to take such a dangerous mission." Tsunami said, looking at the group with a smile.

Slightly thrown off by the niceness of the woman, Naruto sheepishly said, "Well, ma'am, we're happy to help."

It seemed that it was then when she noticed Kakashi, who was passed out.

"Oh my, what happened to him?" she said, pointing at Kakashi.

"Oh, he's just unconscious. We had to fight a ninja named Zabuza and he ended up exhausted from the battle." explained Sakura.

"Well, bring him in! Let's put him in the guest room. We have enough futons for you all." Tsunami said, smiling and leading them in.

Pretty soon, Kakashi was lying down quietly and the three Genin plus Tazuna and Tsunami were at the table in the kitchen, eating to their heart's content.

"Hey, dobe, "said Sasuke, causing everyone to look at him, "I think it's about time you started explaining what the hell was up with that regeneration earlier."

Sakura and Tazuna also looked at Naruto, expecting answers, while Tsunami looked on in curiosity.

With a sigh, Naruto said, "If you guys don't mind, I'd rather save it until Kakashi-sensei wakes up. I know he's gonna want to have some answers as well, and I'm not in a mood to repeat things, unless you guys want to explain it to him in my place."

Sakura quickly shook her head, and a scowl appeared on Sasuke's face. With that, Naruto excused himself and went to the room that he would share with Kakashi and Sasuke. He made sure no one was around and that Kakashi wouldn't randomly wake up, then focused on his body and pictured what he'd like to wear to sleep. Biomass engulfed his body and soon he stood there in loose shorts and a black shirt with the same spiral that was on the back of Kakashi's Jounin vest. With that, he got a couple of kunai and hid them in specific parts around himself so that he could easily reach them an attack if the necessity came. After a few minutes of laying down, his vision began to slightly blur, and suddenly, with a painful pull of his mind, he fell into a state of unconsciousness.

**Naruto's mindscape.**

Naruto rose with a start, looking around. The first thing he noticed was that his pants and legs felt wet. The next thing was that he was in some sort of sewer, if the walls and pipes around him were anything to judge by.

Getting up quickly, he looked around and, shrugging to himself, began to walk down the long sewer. After a few minutes of this, he managed to catch sight of a light at the end of the long tunnel he was in. Wincing slightly at the thought of lights at the ends of tunnels, he decided to head over there. After turning a corner, he was forced to skid to a stop by the shock registering in his brain.

In front of him, where the light was coming from, were a set of bars. Fuckin' huge bars, that is! Naruto figured that maybe two or three of him side by side would fit in between those things. Looking more closely at the bars, he noticed how in the center of them there seemed to be a paper with the kanji for **_'Seal' _**on it. The inside of the cage was very dark, but the darkness seemed very dense. Naruto tried to peer inside, but no luck in the department of sight. Finally, he decided to yell, "Hello?! Anyone there?"

Almost five seconds later, another voice answered... a deep, dark, voice.

**"Oh... so my jailer has finally decided to present himself in front of little old me. Well, it's about time, I've grown tired of just sleeping around. Do you know how boring it is in your mind?"**

While the voice was unfamiliar, its roughness made him take some involuntary steps back. And a second later, a large creature came within his line of sight.

It was a fox. A really big fox. Its fur was a reddish orange, and its mouth was curved up to resemble a smirk. It had red, slit-like eyes, and... It had nine large tails flowing behind it.

Naruto fell back on his butt at the sight of the large creature. And with a shaking voice, he said...

"You're... t-the Kyuubi no Kitsune..."

The Kyuubi chose that moment to laugh... a large, rough sound...

* * *

Cue Belt!: **Dun Dun Duuuuuuun!**

**And the Kyuubi has been introduced! What will happen next time? Don't worry, you won't have to wait long :D**

**Hasta la bye-bye!**


	6. Chapter 6: Explanations

**Welcome back... Again! Now, in this chapter, a lot of questions are gonna be answered, by the great Kyuubi no Kurama! Just saying. Well, read on and answer your questions!**

* * *

**"Kit, you look like you've seen a ghost!" **

Finally gathering his courage, or what remained of it, Naruto stood up and looked at the large kitsune.

"Well... in a way, I would be. Didn't the Yondaime Hokage kill you?" he pointed out.

The Kyuubi laughed again, and said, **"Oh, that's the best joke I've ever heard. A mortal, killing one of the bijū!" **

Naruto growled and said, "Hey! If the Yondaime didn't kill you, then what the hell happened?! And for that matter, why are you here with me?"

The Kyuubi gave a good look at Naruto for a few seconds then said, **"Well, this is gonna be a long history lesson, as well as an anatomical one." **

"What do you mean, anatomical?" Naruto asked, perplexed, although it hit him in a few seconds. "Wait, you know what's been happening to my body?"

**"Well, yes, I do," **said the Kyuubi, absentmindedly licking one of its claws, **"Hence why I said it. But one thing at a time, kit. Although I should tell you that some of the stuff happening to you is because of me."**

"What?!" Naruto asked in shock, "What did you do to my body?!"

**"Calm down, kit, I did nothing bad. You might as well get comfortable, because this is gonna be long."**

"Well, alright, but can you first tell me at least where we are?" Naruto asked.

**"Oh, that's an easy one. We're inside your mindscape." **

"My mindscape? Does this mean I can change anything in here?"

**"Ding-ding, we have ourselves a winner." **the large kitsune said sarcastically.

"Gee, thanks." said Naruto, narrowing his eyes. Looking behind him, he focused on a single spot and, in a poof of smoke, a large sofa appeared, large enough for him to lie down in. "Alright, let's get this over with."

And so, the Kyuubi no Yoko, after being stuck doing nothing for 12 years, finally had someone to talk to. He decided to tell Naruto everything, starting from who his parents were; what happened the night he was born, including why he had attacked Konoha; what he deduced was happening to his body; and what had his death and revival at the sealing had done to the seal of the Kyuubi.

By the end of his tale, Naruto had gone into shock and came back several times. Kyuubi actually thought he'd died at one point.

**"Hey, kit, I think it's about time you started waking up. Somebody's trying to wake you up." **said the Kyuubi, noticing the slight distortion of the walls.

"Oh... right..." said Naruto, hesitating. He started walking off towards the darkness again, but stopped after a few meters and said, "Hey, Kurama?" (Yes, the fox told him his name also)

**"Yeah, kit?" **

"... Why are you so friendly towards me? I mean, you've been stuck in that cage for a while now. I would've thought you'd have wanted to kill me."

The large kitsune thought it over for a bit, then said, **"To be honest, I'm not exactly sure. I just felt like you needed to know, and that way, you wouldn't be completely clueless to the world. Also, you deserved to know. You spent your entire life since birth being rejected, maimed, and shunned by the people in your village. I figured you'd need something other than two or three friends and a future girlfriend ***Naruto blushes* **to have as a beacon of light. And... I suppose I also felt bad for attacking Konoha. Believe it or not, some of us are actually rather calm of heart and mind. Gyūki is one of those tailed beasts, as am I. Others, like Shukaku, actually love causing pain. So keep an eye out for either them or their jinchūriki."**

Once hearing that, Naruto turned around and walked slowly towards the fox, who looked at him questioningly.

Naruto then stuck his fist out, surprising the Kyuubi. He knew what that meant, hence why he was so surprised. After a few seconds, though, a small smirk formed on his face, and he bumped his large paw against Naruto's fist. Naruto then smiled, a true smile. Kyuubi smiled back at him, at least, as much as a large nine tailed fox could smile.

"Will do, Kurama. Thanks!" And with that, he ran off.

The Kyuubi stayed quiet for some minutes, then said, **"I have a feeling that things will get very interesting from now on."**

* * *

**Back at Tazuna's house...**

****Naruto jolted awake as someone poked him on the forehead. He quickly grabbed a kunai that was under his pillow and almost cut the person's throat had he not intercepted it with his own kunai.

"Nice reflexes, dobe, but I'm not an enemy. Now come on, breakfast is ready." said Sasuke, slightly impressed with Naruto's reaction and glad that he had taken the precaution of having his own kunai on him.

Sighing, Naruto got up and stretched, popping some bones. He quickly went to the bathroom and took a quick shower. After, he shifted into his regular clothes and went downstairs, where he sat down on the table after greeting Tazuna, Tsunami, Sakura, and Kakashi, who was using crutches for the moment. Tsunami slid a plate of food in front of him and he gratefully began eating, doing so calmly so as to not appear like a madman. However, he couldn't focus. His conversation with Kurama was running through his mind like a pack of deer.

Therefore, he didn't notice the looks that he got from his team or Tazuna, nor the angry stare coming from somewhere behind him. It was only once he heard the sound of something whistling through the air towards his head that he reacted, moving his head to the side and catching the kunai that had been thrown by Kakashi and that was meant to graze his cheek. Sakura's eyes widened at his reflexive catch, while Sasuke smirked, remembering the grueling months they spent practicing their dodging of all kinds of weapons that Sasuke got from his clan's estate.

"Kakashi-sensei, any particular reason you tried to give me another hole besides my nostrils, mouth, and ears?" asked Naruto, slightly disgruntled at being interrupted while eating.

"I was checking to see if you were truly paying attention, and don't worry, that wouldn't have done any more than graze your cheek." Kakashi said, giving him his usual eye smile.

Naruto grunted in response, then finished his breakfast. After slumping back in his seat with a smile of satisfaction, he heard Sasuke say, "Well, dobe, you ready to start talking?"

Naruto shot a glance at Sasuke and said, "You just can't drop things, can you, teme?"

Sasuke smirked and shook his head.

"I figured as much. Fine then, I'll explain. However, there are some things that might escape me, since I learned most of this just last night." Naruto said, noticing the stares of confusion from his teammates and sensei.

**_"Don't worry, kit, if you forget anything, I'll remind you._**"

"Oh, thanks Kurama- wait, what?!" Naruto said, being startled at the voice of the fox, who was now laughing at him.

"Naruto... who's Kurama?" Kakashi asked, already having some sort of idea.

"It's... the Kyuubi." Naruto said bitingly.

"You nicknamed the Kyuubi 'Kurama'?" deadpanned Kakashi, forgetting that his other two students and client plus family were with them.

"Oi!" said Sasuke, catching everyone's attention. "What the hell are you talking about? Wasn't the Kyuubi killed by the Yondaime?"

Sakura looked at Naruto as well, wondering the same thing.

"Well... no. That's where I was planning to start. Now, as far as I know, this is a big secret, all of this, so I don't know why I'm even telling you. But... I trust you guys. We're a team, after all, and I'm sure Kakashi-sensei knows most of it. So I'll have to ask all of you, including you, Tazuna and Tsunami, to not reveal anything that I'm about to tell you."

Everyone nodded and told him that they agreed, so he began with the story, recounting everything that Kurama had told him.

"This begins the night of October 10, on the day the Kyuubi no Kurama attacked Konoha. No, Kakashi-sensei, to answer your question, that's the Kyuubi's actual name, Kurama. People just know him as the Kyuubi because no one's bothered to ask him what it is. Anyways, the way everyone knows the story, Kurama was rampaging around Konoha until our Yondaime Hokage came and defeated it. That story... is dead wrong. Humans can't kill bijuu, it's basically impossible. They can hinder its progress, yes, but not outright kill them. Bijuu are made of pure chakra, called youki. Therefore, the only way to truly stop a bijuu is to seal it, usually within a human. Now, back then, Kurama was already sealed. During the battle between Madara Uchiha and the Shodaime Hokage Hashirama Senju, Madara summoned Kurama, whom Madara was controlling via his Mangekyo Sharingan, as I've been told by Kurama. Yes," Naruto said, raising a hand to shut up Kakashi and Sasuke, "I did talk with Kurama last night and he told me this, and yes, Sasuke, the Mangekyo Sharingan can control almost anyone, including bijuu, although Kurama believes that only the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan can do this, which Kurama says is usually gained after you have unlocked your own Mangekyo, upon which you have to basically kill your brother, take his eyes and implant them into your own sockets." Naruto paused when he heard Sakura shriek slightly and saw Sasuke pale after hearing this. "Anyways, back to the history lesson, Hashirama had a power of his own, which he used against Kurama. He used a fūinjutsu known as the Contract Seal to take away Madara's control over Kurama, then defeat Madara. After the battle, he decided to seal Kurama into his wife, Mito Uzumaki, because he believed that it was too dangerous to be let roam around. That's actually wrong. Kurama is one of the more peaceful bijū, but is angered rather easily. Now, the reason he was sealed inside Mito is because the Uzumaki were well known by their longevity, massive chakra reserves, and aptitude in fūinjutsu. Anyways, a long time after Hashirama's battle with Madara, Mito was getting too old and seemed ready to die, so they brought another Uzumaki from Uzu no Kuni, which was later destroyed by several nations that feared them. That Uzumaki that was brought to Konoha became the next jinchūriki of Kurama… That person… was my mother, Kushina Uzumaki." Naruto was startled slightly when he saw Kakashi pale after hearing this, but put it off to him surprised that he knew who his mother was. "Kushina later became pregnant with me. Now, for female jinchūriki, when a pregnancy happens, the seal holding a bijū weakens considerably because energy is diverted from the seal to helping the baby grow. By the time labor comes around, it's at its weakest. Therefore, when Kushina was going into labor, she was taken away from the village and to a safe location filled with ANBU as security. But… something went wrong. Someone managed to sneak in, killing all the guards as well as the wet nurses, and managed to extract Kurama from my mom just after I'd been born. Afterwards, he controlled it with a Mangekyo Sharingan of his own."

"Could it have been Madara Uchiha again?!" asked Sakura, who was incredibly focused on the story, as was everyone else, even a young boy who had come into the kitchen at the moment Naruto started his tale.

"I thought the same thing, but Kurama said that it wasn't him. He said the Mangekyo felt… different somehow. Now, back to October 10. The man who extracted Kurama also summoned inside Konoha and attacked the village with it, hoping to destroy it. Many ninja stood in the way, but many also fell. Those who didn't die ended up irreparably broken. Afterwards, however, the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, appeared, and using his famous technique, the Hiraishin, he took Kurama away from the village to a location far away, where he proceeded to seal Kurama into a newborn baby. Now, the reason for this is because he couldn't seal it into a grown person since that person's chakra coils are already developed, and therefore the bijū's youki would overwhelm the person, killing them and letting the bijū free again. Therefore, a newborn baby was best, since their chakra coils would be undeveloped and so they could adapt to the bijū's youki. However, if there's one thing the books have made clear, it's that the Yondaime was a very nice guy. He wouldn't let anyone do anything if he wasn't willing to do it himself. Therefore, he had to seal it into the only newborn baby who was born that day… his own son." He stopped at that point, letting them piece it together.

Kakashi did nothing, since he already knew this story. Sakura got it first, and her face lit up with shock at the revelation. Sasuke was the second to understand it, then Tazuna and then Tsunami.

"You mean…" Sasuke began.

"You're…" Sakura continued.

"Yep… I'm the son of the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, and the jinchūriki of Kurama, the Kyuubi no Kitsune." To prove his point, he lifter his two jackets and shirt and showed them the seal of the Kyuubi.

After this bombshell, his teammates and client went pale.

"Now, that's not all that happened. Apparently, during the sealing of Kurama's Yang chakra into me, my father having sealing the Yin half inside himself, my mom had used a special ability of hers, which is to create chains out of pure chakra, to hold Kurama down. However, Kurama, who was still affected by the evil of whoever it was that was controlling him, lashed out at me, attempting to kill me so as to not be sealed again. My parents got in the way of the claw, being impaled themselves by it, but managing to stop it. However, my mother had a coughing fit, and she lost concentration of the chakra chains. Kurama's claw continued on its path, and stabbed me through the torso, effectively killing me."

If the group had looked pale before, now they were about to turn transparent. Sakura and Sasuke were gaping like fish out of water, and even Kakashi had paled to look like a ghost, not having known this.

"Wait a sec…" said Tazuna, snapping them all out of their shock, "If you died, then how are you here?"

The others looked at Naruto, asking the same question nonverbally.

"As Kurama remembers it, apparently my mother tightened the chains out of shock and anger, causing his claw to come out of me, although the damage was done. After that, he said that both he and my parents witnessed a red and black tendril make its way towards my corpse, enter it, and spread all over my body. After a few seconds, apparently life had returned to me, so my dad finished the sealing of Kurama into me."

After this, there was a deafening silence around them all. Naruto finally broke it by saying, "That's where my abilities come from. That black tendril that revived me."

"So… what do t-these abilities… include?" asked Sakura, still in shock over the revelation of the truth about the Kyuubi and Naruto's parentage.

"Apparently, during the twelve years he's been sealed into me, Kurama has been studying my body to understand what happened to me. According to him, I have increased strength, speed, and flexibility, near-unlimited stamina, and super-fast regeneration. Originally, Kurama's jinchūriki got increased regeneration to begin with, but whatever revived me, which Kurama identified as some kind of virus, increased this to the point where it's practically instantaneous. For example," he grabbed a kunai from his jacket's pocket and stood. Taking a few steps back, he raised it to his neck and slit his own throat, causing Sakura, Tsunami, and the young boy who had come in shriek, Sasuke to yell his name, and Kakashi to stand up and try to stop him. However, once he pulled away the kunai, the others could see that the wound had closed up barely a second after the kunai had opened it. Naruto shrugged and sat back down, saying, "I'm basically completely invulnerable from most deadly wounds. Hell, as you guys and Tazuna saw earlier, I can regrow entire limbs. I just need plenty of concentration for it, although I assume it'll become easier after time. And apparently, the virus messed with Kurama's seal as well."

"What do you mean, Naruto?" asked Kakashi, concerned about the seal.

"Don't worry, Kurama's not about to break out or anything. What I mean is, Kurama told me that, if he understood it correctly, the seal that was holding him was supposed to allow me to absorb some of Kurama's chakra whenever I needed it, as well as it slowly being transferred to my own body, making my chakra coils already more massive than they should be, with me being an Uzumaki and all. However, as you all know, I've spent all my academy time believing I had no chakra. Apparently, that wasn't the case. Around a year before I graduated from the academy, Kurama's chakra was being transferred directly to my own chakra coils. There were two problems with this, though: 1) it's supposed to take quite a number of years, and 2) it was supposed to be converted to regular chakra so I wouldn't suffer the after effects of using Kurama's youki. Well, apparently, both of those have been cancelled. In other words, practically all of Kurama's chakra will be available for me to use in about a year from now, and it will be raw youki, meaning that I don't know how my body will react to it."

As the group digested this quietly, Kakashi asked, "But what about the Kyuubi itself? Since you will have all its chakra, does that mean that it will disappear?"

"No, actually," says Naruto, thinking a bit, "Kurama's still sealed within me, so he will remain there. He will also have a bit of his own chakra to maintain himself. Kurama also says that if I manage to control his youki, which will replenish after some time of use like regular chakra, I'll be able to call him out as a summon of sorts, utilizing his power alongside to mine."

Now everyone was staring at Naruto in shock. A Naruto that could probably stick his foot through a person when using most of his power was one thing, but add in the Kyuubi's chakra? He would be unstoppable!

"I also managed to understand two abilities this virus gives me." Said Naruto.

"And those are…" said Sasuke, leaving the question open.

"Shape shifting and consumption." Naruto said simply.

"You mean like what you did to Gōzu?" asked Kakashi.

"Yes, that. This gives me some good things. One is that I'm able to shape shift into their form." Naruto stood up and concentrated. Red and black tendrils spread all around Naruto's body, until where Naruto used to be, now stood a perfect replica of the Demon Brother Naruto had consumed. The replica spoke in Gozū's voice, "The virus also copies their DNA, so it's available to me whenever I need it. Along with that, if I consume their brain, all of their memories and abilities are available for me to tap into."

"So that's how you realized that they were after Tazuna, isn't it?" asked Sakura, "You saw it in Gozū's memories."

"Indeed, Sakura-chan." he said, giving her a smile, then shifting back into his natural form.

"Is there any more to the shape shifting?" asked Sasuke.

"I don't know yet. I guess I'll have to wait and see." he said. "Now, Kakashi-sensei, I'm going out to train a bit. If you need me for anything, don't hesitate to call!" And with that, he was off, running through the forest.

The house was quiet for some time, until Kakashi broke it and said, "Well, we must be off. Come on you two," he pointed to his two other students, "We have some training to do."

Sakura and Sasuke followed him obediently, their minds still reeling in shock over the information they received.

* * *

**And that's the explanation, folks. Now, if you find something weird, wrong, or you're just nitpicky about it, do leave a review or send me a PM. Now, to plan out the bridge battle...**

**See ya!**


	7. Chapter 7: Training

**Welcome back to Revived at Birth! Now, I need to answer some questions from the reviews:**

**To those talking about the Demon Brothers using the Kage Bunshin: I'm sorry about the hasty use of the Shadow Clone on there. To be honest, I put it there because it was the first solid Clone technique that I thought about. I didn't think of using the Mizu Bunshin at first. I'll see if I go back and change that, but to be honest, I haven't read anything about it being a Konoha exclusive technique, although the fact that it's in the Scroll may be why. I don't know. Can somebody give me a link or something?**

**Other than that, nothing much to talk about except pardon for the inactivity. I managed to get three chapters written during this time, all of which I'll upload between today and tomorrow.**

* * *

**Nami no Kuni, Undisclosed Location, a few hours before Naruto's explanation... **

In a small tent of sorts, a short man walked in, flanked by his two bodyguards. The short, spiky haired, glasses-wearing man named Gatō walked up to the bed on which Zabuza Momochi was lying down.

"Well, well, what's this, Zabuza? I hire you to kill a simple bridge builder and you end up being beaten by a bunch of kids and their babysitter? Perhaps my money isn't being well spent on you. Maybe I should just kill you now and be done with."

However, as Gatō moved up to strangle Zabuza to death, another person's hand quickly appeared and grabbed his wrist, twisting hard.

"You will not harm Zabuza-sama," A feminine voice said, and Gatō looked up only to see Zabuza's mask-wearing partner/apprentice. He didn't need to see his or her face to know that his or her eyes were coldly trained upon his own. With a quick motion, the apprentice twisted Gatō's wrist, making him yell in pain. Gatō's bodyguards moved to intercept the apprentice, but he or she merely flicked a few senbon needles at them, rendering their arms useless.

"I missed your more important organs on purpose, so don't test me," the apprentice growled at the bodyguards, before turning back to Gatō and releasing his wrist.

With a growl, Gato turned around and walked out, saying, "Make sure you kill that bastard and his team of ninjas, or you can consider your payment null and void." Gato's bodyguards followed meekly.

Zabuza looked up at his apprentice and said, "You know, Haku, you didn't need to do that. I'm not as beaten as I appear," showing him or her that he had a kunai in his hand under the bed sheets.

Haku took of his or her mask, showing a feminine kind of face, and said, "Yes, I know, but as your tool, I must protect you, Zabuza-sama."

Zabuza grunted in approval and said, "Either way, good job on Gato. Now, I need you to do your other job that I assigned you. You remember where his house is, right?"

"Yes, Zabuza-sama," Haku said, bowing slightly, "I shall bring back as much intel as I can on the team from Konoha and on the bridge builder."

"Good. Go, now." Zabuza made a gesture, meaning 'get going'. Without further ado, Haku put her mask back on and walked out of the house, choosing to run there regularly so as not to alert any sensory ninja that might be with the team from Konoha.

**The next day…**

Haku came back with her head reeling from the information she got. The main thought that surfaced was, _'Zabuza-sama will definitely want to hear about this.' _

Walking into the cone-shaped house, Haku could see Zabuza quietly snoring on the cot. Smiling at her master's antics, she went around, making the necessary medicines for her master's recovery. A moment later, she heard a snort from Zabuza, presumably from him waking up.

"Oh, Haku, you're back. What took you so long?" Zabuza asked, looking at his apprentice suspiciously.

"My apologies, Zabuza-sama," said Haku, bowing low, "But as I was about to leave, the blond-haired Genin named Naruto started talking about himself, so I stayed to listen. And I'm pleased to say that I have much to say."

"Well, at least it's for a good reason. You got anything to eat? I'm starving." Zabuza said, just as his stomach growled.

Haku giggled slightly and brought Zabuza a broth she'd made for him, having eaten already last night.

As he sipped the broth, Zabuza asked, "Well, what have you uncovered about that Genin?"

Haku began to tell Zabuza all she heard, beginning from the story Naruto told of Hashirama Senju against Madara Uchiha, and the outcome. She told him of Kurama's fate, and where Kurama was now. She continued with the shocking observation of Naruto's parentage and the abilities he'd gained from the virus that had entered his body since his young days.

Needless to say, Zabuza was shocked beyond comprehension. That shorty was the son of the famous Kiiroi Senkō, as well as the jinchūriki of the Kyuubi no Kurama?! But then…

"Pah!" exclaimed Zabuza, surprising Haku, "Doesn't matter if that brat is what he says he is. By the way he acted during my fight with Kakashi, I'd say he didn't get that much training in his childhood, which means he's not at the level he should be. If I remember correctly, Konoha folk are pretty biased, so I assume they must have made the kid's life hell."

Haku analyzed what her master had said and had to agree.

"But what shall we do about the bridge builder?" Haku asked.

"Well, you said that it may take a week for me to fully heal. That day, we shall attack them at the bridge, then go for that snake Gato," growled Zabuza.

Haku nodded and went to do a daily inventory of their supplies, noting how she would need to look for more herbs for her medicine soon enough.

**Back with our favorite heroes, a few days after Naruto's story… **

During the last few days, Team 7 had been doing a lot of training to improve their skills after Kakashi confided on them and Tazuna that he had a suspicion that Zabuza was alive, since the hunter-nin that took Zabuza's body would only need the nukenin's head and Kubikiribōchō to prove that Zabuza was dead. If he was indeed alive, Kakashi estimated that they had about a week, maybe less, to prepare. With that in mind, he began to train both Sasuke and Sakura in tree walking and, as an afterthought, decided to check their elemental affinities. Sasuke's was, unsurprisingly, Fire, with a bit of Lightning mixed in. Sakura's was mainly Earth, with a minor affinity in Water. With that in mind, he gave Sakura a scroll on some **Doton (Earth)** jutsu to practice for now and an exercise with which she could learn to control Water better. Sasuke, on the other hand, didn't need much, since he already had some **Katon (Fire)** jutsu on him. Therefore, Kakashi primarily focused on his chakra control of his main two **Katon** jutsu, the **Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)**, and the **Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu (Fire Release: Phoenix Fire Technique)**. He also began teaching him the basics of his own original jutsu, the **Raikiri (Lightning Cutter/Blade)**, which began as a **Chidori (One Thousand Birds)**. However, he refrained from outright teaching the boy the jutsu yet, as he believed that he wasn't ready for such a technique. He also tried to unlock the last Uchiha's Sharingan, but without success.

As for Naruto, he had a much different approach. From the first day of training, after demonstrating to the two other Genin on how to tree walk, Kakashi took Naruto to a nearby clearing and had him meditate. After he was in-tune with his entire body, Kakashi had Naruto work on summoning Kurama's youki. At first, Naruto was unable to, but after a day of meditation and repeated attempts, a red, bubbling chakra cloak had covered him on his apparent 20th try. After that, Naruto continuously attempted to draw on the Kitsune's youki, managing to control up to one tail of power after four days of training, a feat that was not easy in the least, despite Naruto's power and will.

On the moments he wasn't meditating, Kakashi also trained Naruto on his taijutsu. At first, he needed a demonstration of Naruto's strength, finally realizing just how strong the virus had made him after he managed to punch through five trees with a fully powered punch. Kakashi had been flabbergasted at the amount of power the twelve year old contained, but decided to add more finesse to his fighting style. Therefore, he began teaching Naruto his own style of fighting. While at first, it had been hard to get the young man to keep still long enough to wait for Sasuke, who was acting as an enemy, to attack first, he managed to get the taijutsu style, and even derived his own from it, which consisted of him acting more animalistic in his attacks. He therefore named it Kitsune Style, a name that was reinforced when he noted that when Naruto was using the Kyuubi's youki, his more animalistic side increased the effectiveness of his attacks. He also had a shrewd suspicion that the Kyuubi had a hand in teaching Naruto as well.

Speaking of the nine tailed demon fox, his friendship with Naruto grew by leaps and bounds in just those few days. Kurama admitted to Naruto that he wasn't one to socialize much, even with the other bijū, but even he felt lonely. He had never really attempted to make friends with either of his previous jinchūriki, mainly because he resented the way he was being kept down. That, and they also never really made any attempt to make friends with him either. He grew to care for Naruto like a little brother of sorts, and even told him some of his own more refined styles of fighting. Naruto had, at first, thought that Kurama just fought like a fox: dodging, weaving, using his claws, punching sometimes, and using his tails. However, Kurama said he was more refined than that. When fighting other bijū especially, he did weave around the enemy like a regular fox, but also used timing and precision to take down his foes. This, along with the renowned attack of the bijū, the **Bijūdama** (**Tailed Beast Ball**), was a major reason as to why he was feared.

Kurama also noted that since he and Naruto were becoming friendlier with each other, the demon fox's youki seemed to be less damaging to the young man, and it seemed to be transferring to him at a faster rate. Hell, if their friendship kept growing, he could be able to access all of Kurama's chakra by around half of the year predetermined by Kurama.

While this was all going on, Naruto continued to try out new inventions of his shape shifting. While he was not very good at coming up with plans in battle, his imagination was practically off the charts. By the second day of training, he had managed to get a pair of large black wings after consuming a raven that was unlucky enough to get in the way of Naruto's punch. Oh, that day was one of the most fun days the boy had had in a while…

**_Flashback…_**

_Naruto was punching away at a few targets that Kakashi had set up around the clearing usually used for his training. His Jounin-sensei had gone to check on Sasuke and Sakura, the former of which was practicing using either less chakra or fewer seals for the __**Gōkakyū no Jutsu**__. While at first, Sasuke had needed to use seven hand seals to activate the jutsu, he had managed to knock off two, allowing him to activate it more quickly. Sakura, on the other hand, was attempting to walk on water, a feat she was achieving easily because of her near perfect chakra control. _

_Naruto was weaving back and forth between trees, punching at some, and kicking at others. After a few seconds of doing this repeatedly, his senses caught the sound of something that seemed to be flying at him at a high speed. Turning around quickly, he swung his left fist out and clotheslined the incoming objects, which turned out to be a raven that had apparently seen something it classified as food on one of the trees Naruto was training on. _

_The poor creature's neck was broken on contact, and it flew back, dying even before it hit the tree it was flying towards. Naruto quickly ran up to it to see if there was any way to save it, but alas, it was not to be. As he knelt next to the corpse of the bird, staring at it, his mind was going a mile a minute. If anyone was able to see objects made from thoughts, they would have seen the light bulb that appeared over Naruto's head from a mile away._

_'Hey, Kurama!' Naruto yelled in his head._

_He heard some grumbling, then the voice of his tenant, __**'What is it, kit? There better be a good reason for waking me up.'**_

_'There is, in a way. Can you see what I'm seeing right now?' he asked_

_Kurama took about a second to answer. __**'Yeah, a dead raven. You woke me up for that?'**_

_Naruto could practically feel it's displeasure at being woken up for a raven, so he continued quickly, 'Yeah, a raven. Remember how I can take on the forms and characteristics of anyone I transform?'_

**_'Yeah. What are you…?' _**_Kurama began, but suddenly began to understand what Naruto meant._

_Without further ado, Naruto grabbed the raven's body in his right hand, making a quick check around him to make sure that no one was watching him. Then, focusing on the raven, he commanded his body to absorb it. Almost immediately, black tendrils whipped out from his hand and absorbed the raven, breaking it into biomass (a word he got from Kurama after he heard it call the tendrils by that name) and absorbing it quickly. The process was done in a matter of seconds._

_Naruto stood up, feeling no different than before. He got a number of memories that mainly focused on sound, smell, and sight rather than actual vocabulary, which was obvious. Thankfully, it hadn't caused him a headache like Gōzu had. He also didn't feel anything different with his body, although he could sense that the DNA and mind of the raven had been successfully integrated into his own._

_Reflexively, he thought about how the wings of the raven looked like. He created an almost perfect image of it, then reeled in shock as the biomass of his body began going haywire, moving all around the boy's body. A minute later, the tendrils stopped, and Naruto could feel some kind of small extra weight on his back. Quickly running towards a river that he remembered was nearby, he looked at his reflection and gasped when he saw the large black wings sprouting from his back. With a thought, he dismissed the wings, and watched as they became biomass and entered his body again. He practiced activating and deactivating them for a few minutes, then decided to put them to the test._

_Standing back at his regular training clearing, he activated the wings and unfolded them, quickly becoming used to the feel and texture of a few extra muscles. He flapped them once, and felt the air around him fly at the strong flap. He flapped again, harder this time, and his feet left the ground for a few seconds before touching back down. After thinking this over, he gathered strength in his legs, the strength augmenting after he focused biomass there as well, and jumped, quickly clearing the treetops and reaching at least 10 stories in height. Once at the apex, he flapped his wings continuously. This allowed him to hover where he was, and he was able to see almost everything around him, although the light mist around Nami no Kuni was annoying, to say the least. He looked down when he noticed an orange glow appear and then disappear, and focused on watching his teammates train. After a minute, he got bored and decided to fly around Nami, quickly checking out almost everything and making a mental map of the place._

**_Flashback Kai…_**

After that day, Naruto had taken to using the wings continuously until they became an extension of him. It was pretty easy to retreat from battle when you could sprout wings at will. The thing he hadn't done yet was tell his teammates or sensei. If another battle with Zabuza was coming up, he figured, he'd rather leave it as a surprise.

Around the third day, he had also been able to grow claws. He grew these after studying Kurama's claws and attempting to recreate them with biomass. While at first he had been rather unsuccessful, he'd managed to achieve it after quite a few tries. When he activated the ability, his sleeves fused with his arm and became completely black, his hands increased in size, and he grew three large, finger-like claws, along with an extra that acted like a thumb. After testing their power on a tree, he noticed they were sturdy enough to cut halfway through a tree trunk, and sharp enough to slice a deer without any resistance. These attributes only increased when he used Kurama's youki along with them. When he focused the youki on the blades, the blades became a blood-like, iridescent red color, which he had to admit looked awesome as hell. It also doubled the claws' sturdiness and sharpness, to the point where he could slice through an entire tree without problem. The best part, however, is that with the claws, Naruto was better able to use Kurama's Kitsune Style of fighting.

And with that, the week came and went, and with it, the three Genin became stronger than they had ever been before. They also knew that this was only the beginning of their training…

**Time skip, the day of Zabuza's attack on the bridge…**

Naruto was sleeping fitfully when a buzzing began in his ears. He scratched it annoyingly but went straight back to sleep. The buzzing became louder and louder until Naruto was half awake, upon which Naruto could hear a voice yelling out in his head.

**'Wake the hell up, Kit!'**

"Yikes!" yelled Naruto, now fully awake and bouncing up to his feet, kunai at the ready. He looked around for the voice, but then figured that it had come from inside his head. _'Kurama, what the hell?! Why are you waking me up?!'_

_'__**Well, I figured that you'd want to know that your friends have left without you.' **_Said Kurama grudgingly.

Looking around, Naruto noticed that Kurama was right. His teammates and sensei were nowhere to be seen. Rushing to the bathroom quickly, he brushed his teeth and shifted into his clothes. Admiring himself for a second, he suddenly heard a voice from downstairs.

"Get the hell away from my son!"

_'That was Tsunami's voice!' _thought Naruto, eyes widening. He quickly ran downstairs and hid behind a wall, then stole a glance at the living room.

The door had been completely blasted off its hinges (how he slept through that, he didn't even know) and was lying against the wall across from the doorway. In the room, Tsunami was bound and gagged, although the gag had fallen from her mouth. In front of her, with their backs to him,were two samurai-looking guys, if the katana they had were anything to judge by. One of them was holding Inari, Tsunami's son, by the scruff of the neck, as if wondering what to do with him.

"You stay away from my kaa-san!" yelled Inari, swinging at the guy holding him with a kitchen knife.

The samurai, however, simply grabbed the young boy's wrist, stopping his attack halfway though. Inari whimpered, thinking he was seriously going to die. Imagine his shock, however, when three claws sprouted from the torsos of both samurai, making them give a choked cry of pain.

Naruto quickly retracted his claws from the two, then swiped at their necks, killing them instantly. He stepped back to avoid the spurt of blood, and watched as the two collapsed, dropping Inari on top of his mother. Naruto quickly ran up to Tsunami, apologizing for the mess and cutting the ropes with one of his claws, whereupon he dismissed the claws and watched as his arms returned to normal.

"Tsunami-san, where are my teammates and Tazuna?" Naruto quickly asked.

"They should be at the bridge right now. They mentioned that they'd let you sleep a little longer since you were training so hard, especially after yesterday." She said, not minding the bloody corpses of the two samurai.

Naruto grunted, slightly annoyed at this, but also glad that they cared for him so much. He remembered how he had stormed out of the house the day before when Inari had yelled at him and his team, calling them fools for taking on Gato and saying that they didn't know what it was like to suffer. Naruto had lost his temper at that last one and ran at the boy, grabbing him by the scruff of his shirt and pinning him against a wall, where he proceeded to tell him in detail how mistreated he was by those in Konoha who only saw him as the Kyuubi. He detailed the chases, the comments, the beating he'd suffered, and then stormed out of the house, training (a.k.a. releasing his temper on the forest) until way past dark, whereupon he snuck inside and, after talking with Kakashi, went to sleep.

He was about to run out of the house and after his friends when Inari, who seemed to sense his intentions, said, "You're not planning on just leaving us here unprotected, are you, nii-san?"

"I have to, Inari. I have to go help my friends," said Naruto, looking at the boy, who began to sniff.

"But then… who will protect *sniff* us?"

Naruto thought for a moment, then, glancing at Tsunami, he flicked a kunai in the air towards Inari, who gingerly caught it by the handle.

"You will, Inari," Naruto said softly.

Inari looked up at Naruto's smiling face and felt his confidence grow.

"Hai, nii-san! I'll protect kaa-san with all I got!" he said, mock-saluting.

Tsunami smiled at Naruto, thanking him nonverbally for changing Inari into the brave boy he was now.

Without another word, Naruto ran out of the house after quickly moving the door back to its frame so it could at least lean against the doorway. Once outside, he activated and unfurled his wings. Jumping, he took to the skies, flapping mighty hard, hoping to reach the bridge in time.

**Meanwhile, at the bridge…**

Two tremendous battles were going on.

One between the renowned Demon of the Hidden Mist, Zabuza Momochi, and the man who copied one thousand jutsu, Kakashi Hatake.

The other between the user of the **Hyōton (Ice)** kekkei genkai and apprentice of Zabuza, Haku; and the last of the Uchiha, Sasuke.

The two battles clashed all over the bridge, neither side of either battle gaining any leverage.

Until Haku pulled up her ultimate technique, the **Hyōton: Makyō Hyōshō**, which turnedthe tide of her battle against Sasuke almost immediately.

Can Naruto arrive in time? Or will he be too late to save his closest friend and rival?

* * *

**Don't worry, you won't wait long for the answers to the questions. **


	8. Chapter 8: The Battle at the Bridge

**Alright, Here's the next chapter. Enjoy!**

* * *

**Tazuna's bridge, morning of Zabuza's second attack... **

Team 7, minus Naruto, was escorting Tazuna to the bridge as usual. However, once they arrived, they were greeted by the sight of a thin mist moving over the bridge and the sight of the workers who all seemed to be either knocked out or just outright killed.

"Guys, formation," Kakashi said to his team, who immediately formed a triangle around Tazuna, with Kakashi in front of the bridge builder.

"**Kirigakure no Jutsu**," Zabuza's voice came from inside the thin mist, which soon solidified until visibility was rather low.

"Well, can't say that it's a pleasure to see you, Zabuza." Kakashi said into the mist.

"Likewise, Kakashi, " Zabuza said, and the mist thinned enough for Team 7 to see Zabuza and his partner, the fake hunter-nin, only a few paces away.

Almost immediately, eight Mizu Bunshin surrounded the group. Zabuza tried an intimidation technique by saying, "Wow, Kakashi, what have you been teaching these kids? I mean, look at that one. Supposed to be the last Uchiha and trembling like a scared rabbit."

_'How the hell does he know Sasuke is the last Uchiha?!' _thought Kakashi, perplexed.

Sasuke, on the other hand, merely said, "I'm not trembling from fear... I'm trembling from excitement... excitement at being able to take a crack at you again!"

With that declaration, he whipped out a kunai and fazed out of sight, reappearing at the same spot moments later. A second after, all eight of the Mizu Bunshin exploded into water, and Sasuke smirked at Zabuza.

"Oh? Well, well, well, looks like you have some competition, Haku." Zabuza said, glancing at his apprentice. "I guess you should prove to him why you're still the best."

"Sasuke, go! Sakura, protect the client!" barked Kakashi to his students, who immediately sprang to attention. Sakura pulled out a kunai and got into a defensive stance. Sasuke, meanwhile, dashed towards Haku wielding his own kunai and began pushing her back towards the middle of the bridge while Kakashi began to battle with Zabuza. Kunai clashed against senbon multiple times until they clashed and remained at a standstill.

"Seems like we're evenly matched," Sasuke said, pushing hard against Haku's senbon needle.

"Wrong. I have two clear advantages," Haku pointed out. "First, I've occupied one of your hands. Secondly, there's water around us." With that said, she lifted her left hand and began making a few hand seals.

_'One-handed seals?! Never seen that before!' _thought Sasuke, preparing himself for whatever plan the fake hunter-nin was cooking up.

"**Hyōton: Sensatsu Suishō! (Ice Release: One Thousand Flying Water Needles!)**" Haku cried out, and at once, the water around them rose up and solidified, forming a number of ice needles, all pointed towards Sasuke, who quickly analyzed the situation.

Haku then commanded the needles to strike at Sasuke, and jumped away. Sasuke focused chakra into his feet and jumped straight up, where there were no needles. However, a kick from behind him sent him flying downwards to the bridge, although he twisted at the last minute and managed to skid to a stop. Before he could move, however, Haku appeared yet again and did a number of hand seals.

"I cannot waste any more time with you. My goals must be achieved. **Hyōton: Makyō Hyōshō! (Ice Release: Demonic Crystal Mirrors!)**" Haku cried out, and in an instant, twenty-one crystallized ice mirrors appeared around Sasuke, twelve around him perpendicular to the ground, eight other mirrors over these, facing the ground at about forty-five degree angles, and finally one mirror facing down. Sasuke gasped as he saw Haku melt into the mirror in front of him, and suddenly, Haku's reflection was mirrored on every single ice mirror, making it twenty-one to one.

_'Oh... shit!' _thought Sasuke, pulling out a kunai, just as the senbon needle rain began.

**Meanwhile... **

Kakashi and Zabuza had been fighting evenly up to now. While Zabuza had plenty of strength and his famous **Kirigakure no Jutsu**, Kakashi had his speed, Sharingan, and plenty of jutsu to counter Zabuza's attacks.

However, once Haku activated her **Makyō Hyōshō**, both fighters' attention were drawn towards it. Zabuza smirked, knowing that the shrimp of an Uchiha was done for, and Kakashi grimaced, hoping that he would be able to deal with Zabuza quickly enough to help his student.

Turning back to his battle with Zabuza, Kakashi noticed that he was about to start doing hand signs. His Sharingan spinning, Kakashi began doing the same hand signs until they both ended at the Bird sign and with a double cry of, "**Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu! (Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!)**" two immense water dragons flew up from both sides of the bridge. The water dragons swirled around each other before crashing against each other's snouts and causing water to fall in a light rain. Looking down again, Zabuza noted that Kakashi had disappeared, so he closed his eyes and concentrated.

A few seconds later, he jumped away, a split second before Kakashi's **Raikiri (Lightning Cutter)** passed through the spot he'd just occupied. Jumping away and drawing Kubikiribōchō, Zabuza said, "You really think you can beat me in this mist? Don't make me laugh!" With that, he swung in a wide arc at Kakashi, cleaving him in half, until both halves of Kakashi exploded in water.

"What?!" Zabuza whispered, "Never thought anyone could get me from behind…" he said, quickly spotting Kakashi standing behind him.

"Face the facts, Zabuza…" Kakashi said, turning to Zabuza, "You can't win."

Moving Kubikiribōchō onto his shoulder, Zabuza simply chuckled and said, "You've got to be kidding me… You're the losers here. I'm sure you've already noticed, that Uchiha brat of yours…" he pointed at the hemisphere of ice mirrors, "… has no chance of beating Haku. He doesn't have what it takes to kill. However, Haku is different. She's been trained to kill since she could fight. She's an incredible ninja, with a deadly Kekkei Genkai technique."

Kakashi just stared at Zabuza, while his fear for the safety of his student increased little by little.

"What's wrong?" Zabuza taunted, "You got behind me, didn't you? So bring it."

Kakashi didn't respond.

Zabuza laughed. "What's wrong, you scared now? Well then…" and with that, the Mizu Bunshin of Zabuza dispelled, splashing water over the ground and startling Kakashi, who turned in time to meet Zabuza's eyes, the owner of which said, "… allow me!"

With that, Zabuza swung, attempting to cleave Kakashi's head from his shoulders. Kakashi, however, merely dropped to the ground and sent a mule kick to Zabuza, who jumped back to avoid it. Immediately, he swung down towards Kakashi, but was startled when instead, Kubikiribocho stuck something else with a loud _clang_.

**Seconds earlier…**

Naruto had been flying for about five minutes now, and the bridge was now coming in sight. He stopped momentarily when he saw two gigantic water dragons fly up from the water on both sides of the bridge and hit each other, dispersing one another. He flew faster now since he knew something bad was about to happen. He didn't know what, but he had an unusually bad feeling. Flying low to the ground now, he flapped hard and caught sight of Zabuza swinging at Kakashi, whereupon he activated his claws and moved faster. A second later, he came to a stop right between Zabuza and Kakashi, crossing his hands in an X formation and preventing the blade from coming close to cleaving his sensei in half.

"What?!" Zabuza yelled in shock.

Glancing back at Kakashi, Naruto said, "Hey there, Kakashi-sensei. Hope I'm not too late."

Kakashi chuckled lightly and said, "Nope, you're just in time."

Activating his Thermal Vision, Naruto glanced at the hemisphere of ice mirrors made by Haku and said, "Kakashi-sensei, go help Sasuke. I can see that he's in quite a pinch. I'll hold Zabuza off for now." To prove his point, Naruto focused biomass into his arms and pushed Kubikiribōchō away, making Zabuza lose his footing after stepping on a puddle behind him. Zabuza quickly did a backwards somersault and landed heavily a few feet away from Naruto, who was now alone, Kakashi having gone to help Sasuke deal with Haku.

"You know, gaki," Zabuza said, heaving Kubikiribōchō and pointing it at Naruto, "you might have managed to land a lucky kick on me in our last battle but... Wait... Are those wings?!" Zabuza asked loudly, now noticing the large, raven-feathered wings sprouting from Naruto's back.

"Yeah, they are." Naruto said, moving his eyebrows up and down, "Cool, huh?"

"Oh yeah? Well let's see how cool they look when I RIP THEM OFF!" Zabuza yelled, running at Naruto and dragging Kubikiribōchō behind him, causing it to emit sparks against the floor of the bridge. Naruto readied himself, and when Zabuza swung Kubikiribōchō at him in a large vertical angle, he jumped high in the air, leaving Zabuza far underneath him. Flapping his wings, he dived towards Zabuza, who quickly raised his large zanbatou to counter him. Flapping to the left, he flew around Zabuza and swung at the right part of Zabuza's face, an attack that would have rendered Zabuza's right eye useless had the Jounin not moved away from the slash, just barely managing to dodge.

_'Dammit, this gaki can't be a Genin. This speed and strength could belong to a high Chunnin, if not a Jounin! Plus, those wings and claws... Is that a bloodline or something?!' _Zabuza thought wildly as Naruto flew in circles around Zabuza, striking everywhere he could and causing Zabuza to become more and more frustrated as he either blocked or evaded every attack the Genin threw at him.

Finally, Zabuza had enough. With a wild yell, he took hold of Kubikiribōchō with both hands and swung around in a large circle, forcing Naruto to fly away from him and land not too far away from him, grinning. His plan had worked.

Zabuza, who was annoyed and angry at how Naruto had avoided any damage from him with the exception of a gash down his arm which had healed moments later, while he had multiple scratches and wounds around his body, began to charge at Naruto wildly, Naruto's grin simply causing him to get even angrier, something Naruto was counting on.

Naruto quickly thrust his hands into the bridge, focusing a large amount of biomass into his claws and releasing it so it would intercept Zabuza's charge. He used as much biomass as he could since he didn't know how thick Zabuza's skin was. When Zabuza was barely a foot away, the attack erupted from the ground of the bridge.

A scream of pain rent the air, followed by a loud _clang _as Kubikiribōchō fell heavily from Zabuza's hand to the ground.

The reason being because Zabuza's arms had been pierced straight through by two large spikes that had erupted from the ground, perfectly timed to intercept him and jolting his attack to an abrupt stop.

Zabuza ground his teeth in pain as he felt another stab of pain come from the holes in his arms. He was now lifted up in the air, his feet barely touching the bridge, looking as if he had been crucified. Naruto brought his hand out from the ground, leaving a spike inside the bridge to hold the spikes. He slowly walked up to Zabuza and studied the man's predicament.

"You do realize why you landed in this problem, right, Zabuza?" Naruto asked him.

Zabuza didn't answer for a minute, but finally said, "Gaki, please, just kill me."

"And why would I do that?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow.

"We're enemies, aren't we? You've won. I can't wield Kubikiribōchō anymore... I can't fight anymore. There's no room for niceties in this ninja world. So please, gaki, kill me." Zabuza said, hanging his head in defeat.

Naruto looked at Zabuza for a second, weighing his options. Finally, he said, "As you wish, Zabuza. You'll die a ninja's death... In the battlefield."

Taking a few steps back, Naruto readied his claws and prepared to separate Zabuza's head from his body. Unknown to both was that Haku had been defeated by Kakashi, with Sasuke barely surviving. Haku had asked the same of Kakashi, to kill her because, as she said it, "Zabuza-sama has no need for a useless weapon." Kakashi complied, and was charging up his **Raikiri** to strike at her heart. But Zabuza had unknowingly released the **Kirigakure no Jutsu**, giving Haku and Kakashi a front row seat view of Zabuza's impending death at the hands of Naruto. Haku, noticing her master's plight, quickly used her remaining chakra to create an ice mirror and dash at an incredible speed towards Zabuza and Naruto... Only to sacrifice herself as Naruto's claws dug deeply into her body.

Naruto and Zabuza were shocked. Naruto because he didn't expect her to do such a thing, and Zabuza because he had almost forgotten about her. Haku coughed out, spilling blood onto the ground, and said, "Even to my death... I... Shall protect... you... Zabuza-sama..." then... She died, leaning down against Naruto.

Naruto slowly brought his claw out of Haku, his mind barely registering the fact that his body had absorbed some of Haku's blood and DNA, and laid her on the ground. Kakashi quickly rushed towards them, only to see Naruto laying Haku down and closing her eyes.

Naruto stood back up, planning to finish his attack to Zabuza with renewed vigor, but the interruption of a third party distracted him.

"Well, well, well... So the Demon of the Hidden Mist has been beaten yet again. Seems I was in my right mind when I decided not to pay you." Gatō said, clapping his hands. In front of the short man were almost a hundred mercenaries and thugs, all wielding some kind of weapon.

"You what?!" Zabuza growled. "You were never gonna pay me and Haku, you bastard?!"

"Of course I wasn't, you fool," Gatō scoffed, "were you really dumb enough to believe that? Ninja are far too expensive, so I simply wait until they're weak and kill off both sides. Saves me quite a bit of coin. Now, my soldiers," the thugs stood to attention at this, "Finish them off. Double to whoever kills the bridge builder. But capture the girl. She'll make a great amount of money as a sex slave." The mercenaries and thugs laughed and began advancing slowly upon the people on the bridge, savoring the moment.

Kakashi looked to his left and saw Zabuza with his head hung low, accepting his fate, and Naruto looking down as well, his face hidden by the shadow of the hood he wore, and his body trembling. Looking to his right, he saw Sasuke limping over to him, holding his left arm with his other hand. The boy's eyes were red, a Sharingan of one tomoe spinning in each eye, although that wouldn't help much. And he, Kakashi, was tired, not from the jutsu he used against Zabuza, but from the use of his own Sharingan. Their chances seemed bleak.

Then, Naruto surprised them all... Again.

Walking over to Kubikiribōchō, he focused biomass into his right hand, making it stronger, and picked it up by its handle with that hand. The other, he kept as a claw. Walking past Zabuza, he murmured, "I'm borrowing this..." Then stepped forward, between his team and the army. He activated his wings and unfurled them, blocking the path. Some of the thugs faltered, and Kakashi figured why: with one hand completely black with white claws, the other holding a huge zanbatou, large black wings behind him, and his face shrouded in darkness from the hood he wore; no matter how much shorter he was than the thugs, he still painted a scary image.

Them, with the sound of wind being pushed by wings, he charged at the army, lifting his head to show slit-like red eyes and dark whisker marks.

The resulting bloodbath made Sakura have to puke over the edge of the bridge, Sasuke to stare wide-eyed at his teammate's attack, Kakashi to be equally wide eyed at the efficiency and speed he killed without remorse, and Zabuza to stare at how efficiently Naruto wielded Kubikiribōchō.

Naruto wove between the first line of defense, landing in between a number of thugs. These immediately jumped at him, aiming to kill him. Naruto quickly retracted his wings and began to spin around in a circle quickly, catching 10 by surprise and cutting them in half. The others moved away from the range of the large zanbatou, whereupon Naruto stopped spinning and attacked head on. He wove around and attacked his enemies quickly, not showing any kind of mercy. He cut down about half the army of thugs with Kubikiribōchō, slashed a quarter more with his claw, and then used them both in a skillful display of speed and strength to completely decimate the rest. A number of the survivors jumped on top of his back, aiming to stab him, but Naruto focused on Kurama's youki and blasted it out of his body, causing the mercenaries to fly off of him, some dead right away, others severely burnt from the poisonous chakra. And finally, after slashing through a man with Kubikiribōchō and waiting until both halves of him fell to the ground, he turned his eyes towards Gatō, who had fallen onto his ass on the ground from the pure fear her felt.

Naruto slowly walked up to him and grabbed him by the collar of his suit, lifting him up to his feet. Then, in a slightly demonic voice, he spoke.

**"You have spilled the blood of hundreds of innocents... And for you... the only punishment... is a slow and painful death..."**

Gatō, paralyzed by fear and entranced by the red eyes of Naruto, screamed in pain as Naruto thrust Kubikiribōchō straight through his torso, missing most vital organs by luck. Gatō stared at Naruto, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and his fear increased as red and black tendrils sprouted from Naruto's body and slowly ripped him apart, making him feel all the pain of his body parts being ripped from his body. Finally, only his torso and head were left, and with a quick motion, Naruto absorbed the rest of the body, and cringed in pain as memories ripped through his brain.

After a minute, he stood back up slowly and walked back to the group, ignoring the looks his team was giving him, and stopped in front of Zabuza, where he dropped Kubikiribōchō in front of the man.

"Thank you, Zabuza." Naruto said in a low voice, "And sorry for your apprentice."

"It's ok, gaki..." Zabuza responded, his head hung low. "I'm sad to say that... I didn't... treat her as well as... she should have been treated... I'm sorry for that, Haku... I truly am... I don't have... much time left so... gaki... I have one last... request from you..."

"And what would that be?" Naruto asked apprehensively.

"I want you... To wield Kubikiribōchō... and make of it... a weapon of good intentions... Maybe you can... succeed where i... failed... Good luck to you... Naruto... Namikaze..."

And with that, Zabuza Momochi, the Demon of the Hidden Mist and master of the Silent Killing technique, exhaled his last breath, and died, leaving his most precious weapon to the only other person who was able to wield it as well as, if not better than, him... Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze.

* * *

**So! **

**What'cha think?! Review and tell me how I did with the bridge Battle. Also, yes, Naruto is now the wielder of Zabuza's Executioner's Blade. He will have some trouble from Kiri about it, but he'll still keep it. This doesn't mean that he won't get the Blade power. Just that he'll be able to use Kubikiribōchō at his leisure.**


	9. Chapter 9: Return Home with a Tale

** Trondason: I do agree that it's mostly Konoha ninja, but I think that it being in the Book of Sealing that means that it's Konoha Exclusive.**

** Arai Kaji & Noctus of the Thousand Blades: Sorry for killing Haku, but I didn't have any use for her after this part.**

** X10-Killbot - I didn't expect this to be the best Prototype X-over off the bat, but I'm aiming for that. I apologize if this isn't your cup of tea, but that isn't necessarily my problem. I didn't show the reaction of Naruto at learning of his parents because I assumed it wasn't necessary. I mean, think about it, if you've watched Naruto Shippuden then you should know how he would react when face to face with his parents. This time, he isn't, so he can only go into shock about it. I already wrote why Kurama is practically good in this fic. And Naruto told his teammates because after being around them for so long, and since Kakashi already knows this, he ****_trusts _****them. If they break that trust, that's when he'll go on the defensive against them.**

**It's time to return to Konoha!**

* * *

**Tazuna's Bridge, a week after the defeat of Zabuza, Haku, and Gato…**

Team 7 was standing at the road to leave to Konoha. During the last week, everybody had been celebrating because of the death of Gato and his men. Naruto, thanks to the memories gotten from Gatō's mind, was able to get all the money Gato had taken and, after getting the money equivalent of an A-Ranked Mission for him and his team, gave it all to Nami no Kuni, who praised him greatly. The team also spent time helping Tazuna, both at home and at the bridge. Sakura decided to stay with Tsunami at the house to help her, while Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi went with Tazuna and his workers and helped him complete the bridge. Naruto and the team also took a day off to bury Zabuza's Zabuza and Haku, and to pay their respects.

While preparing to depart, Naruto checked for the fifth time the contents of a backpack he'd bought at the village. Making sure that the contents were VERY securely wrapped, he closed it and tightened the straps tightly against his shoulder blades, making sure the pack wouldn't be cut open by Kubikiribōchō, which was strapped across his back. But before he could begin to move, a young boy ran up to Naruto and jumped to hug him from behind, crying slightly.

"Naruto-niichan, don't go!" Inari cried at Naruto, who knelt down to look Inari in the eye.

"Inari, I have to. I have precious people to protect in Konoha, just like you have your mother and grandpa to take care of now. So make sure to keep them safe, ok?" Naruto asked, ruffling the young boy's hair and giving him a double eye smile similar to Kakashi's.

"Thank you all for your help." Tazuna said, walking up to the group, with the residents of Nami standing on the bridge. "Without your help, we wouldn't be able to have broken free from Gatō anytime soon. Our doors will always be open for you to come."

"Thank you for your hospitality, Tazuna-san." Kakashi said, smiling at the old bridge builder. He then signaled to his team. "Come on, guys, we should get going. You guys want to take it easy and arrive there in a day and a half or hurry and get there today?"

"I say we hurry!" Naruto yelled, pumping his fist in the air, "The faster we get there, the quicker I can get some Ichiraku Ramen!"

"I agree with Naruto," Sakura said, "I really want to get home."

"Hn, sure, why not?" I don't think I even need to say who that was.

Eye-smiling again, Kakashi just turned and jumped into the trees, using chakra to push himself off. Sasuke smirked and thought, _'If it's a race he wants, it's a race he'll get,'_ and jumped after his sensei.

Sakura was about to follow, but Naruto had a better idea. In a flash, he got behind Sakura and grabbed her by the waist, making her yelp and blush. Then, adding strength to his legs, he jumped high in the air, passing the treetops, and brought out his wings, which unfurled and flapped to get them both in the air.

While flapping continuously to keep them up in the air, while the people on the bridge just stared in amazement, Naruto whispered into Sakura's ear, "This is your captain speaking, please make sure to keep all arms and legs inside the ride at all times, and do not move too much. Have a happy flight!"

The last word made her scream in shock, but before she could protest, Naruto flapped forward and they shot off, following the direction Kakashi and Sasuke had gone.

And with that, Team 7 headed back to Konohagakure.

**Konohagakure, Village Gates, 5:45 PM…**

Kakashi and Sasuke heard a scream as they approached the Gates of Konoha. Looking up, both of them could see a black and pink blur falling from the sky. They hurried forward just in case something had happened to Naruto, but they didn't need to worry. Naruto simply opened his wings and stopped himself just a few feet from creating a bloody crater, and landed lightly, dropping his female teammate who was just staring off into space. A moment later, his other teammate and sensei appeared next to him.

"Dobe…" Sasuke said, making Naruto look at him, before his face broke into a wide grin, "That was mean… but priceless."

Naruto began to laugh wildly, making Sakura regain her bearings. She glared at Naruto, annoyed at his stunt, but had to admit that that was an incredibly fun, adrenaline-filled experience.

Retracting his wings before someone saw them, Naruto said, "Come on guys, let's go see Hokage-jiji. I need to have a talk with him."

"Naruto," Kakashi said, making Naruto turn around, "Go easy on Hokage-sama. He did everything he did for what he believed was your own good."

Naruto looked down for a second, and in that second, his teammates felt the blonde's demeanor completely change. Looking back up again, Naruto said, "Yeah… I know, Kakashi-sensei. I don't plan on making this a very big deal, don't worry."

Kakashi nodded, and the entire team then moved in through the gates. And as per usual, the Chunnin guards, Kotetsu Hagane and Izumo Kamizuki, stopped them to write their names on the entry log. However, when Kotetsu noticed what was behind Naruto, he stopped and did a double take, unintentionally drawing a large line across the paper he was writing on.

"W-wait! Naruto, is that… K-Ku-Kubikiribōchō… the famed Executioner's Blade of Zabuza Momochi?!" Kotetsu said, eyes widening, something that almost everyone around them did as well as they heard his words.

Naruto glanced back at the handle and part of the zanbatou hanging over his left shoulder blade, at an angle so that he could simply reach up and draw it quickly if need be. Turning back to the pair of best friends Kotetsu and Izumo, he grinned and nodded, saying, "Yup! Me and my team fought Zabuza and his lackey Haku and won! And he gave this sword to me as his… dying wish…" he finished, looking down slightly with some sadness.

"Wow… you're really something, kid." Izumo said, glancing at his partner and best friend with eyes as wide as his.

"Hey, guys, we need to get going. You can share stories later," Kakashi said, walking away from the group with his head already in his Icha-Icha Paradise.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke followed, the team drawing looks from everyone around them. The main reason, however, was our favorite blonde knucklehead himself. While at first, it had been simply dark and disgusted whispers about the 'Kyuubi brat' and whatnot, the whispers turned into panicked voices when they saw the large zanbatou strapped across the 12 year old's back.

Soon enough, the group reached the Hokage Tower and, minutes after, met with Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Sandaime Hokage. While giving their report of the mission, Naruto refrained from telling Hiruzen that he knew about the Kyuubi and his parentage, something his teammates noticed and copied.

Once the briefing was done, Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi turned to leave. Naruto, however, stopped Kakashi and said to his teammates, "You guys go ahead, we'll catch up."

Shrugging, the two left the tower, with Sakura saying something about a date to Sasuke, who groaned. Chuckling at his teammates' antics, he turned back around when Hiruzen said, "What do you need to talk about, Naruto?"

Turning back to his surrogate grandfather, Naruto shrugged off his backpack and pulled out a number of small books, which both Kakashi and Hiruzen recognized immediately, a small square box, and two tall, rectangular boxes.

Putting the books on top of Hiruzen's desk, he put them side by side and said, "These are limited edition Icha Icha Paradise books that haven't even hit the markets in Konoha yet. There's two copies of each book, which I brought as a gift for both you, Hokage-jiji, and you, Kakashi-sensei."

Both men stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at the blonde boy, then at the books. Then, with shaking hands, they both reached for a copy of each book, staring at them as if they were a gift from Kami herself.

"Now for you, Hokage-jiji," said Naruto, drawing their attention back to him, "I also brought this box *cue Naruto placing square box on Hiruzen's desk* which contains some of the most renowned cigars from the Elemental Nations, and even beyond. It has five cigars per nation, and they're all neatly organized." With that, Naruto presented the box to the man he considered a grandfather, who reached out tentatively and checked inside of the box, finding Naruto to be correct.

"And finally," Naruto announced, putting on the counter the two tall, rectangular boxes, "these contain a bottle of some of the most delicious wine you'll ever taste. Pure white Dragon of The West wine. A bottle for the both of you."

Hiruzen and Kakashi stared at the gifts they had been given by Naruto, and then Hiruzen decided to break the silence, "Thank you very much for the gifts, Naruto, but where did you get them?"

"Gatō's safe house." said Naruto, shrugging, "I figured you'd like it. But, in exchange, I do want something from you, Jiji."

Hiruzen frowned, and said, "What is it that you want?"

Looking at the Hokage with determination, Naruto said, "I want you to ask every man, woman, and child in Konoha to gather in front of the Hokage tower in two days and announce to everyone that I am the jinchūriki of the Kyuubi no Kurama, and the son of Kushina Uzumaki and Minato Namikaze, the Yellow Flash Of Konoha and Yondaime Hokage."

Both Hiruzen and Kakashi gaped at Naruto like two fish in a pond: Hiruzen because he was shocked that Naruto knew of both those things, and Kakashi because he was surprised Naruto would ask such a thing.

"You cannot be serious, Naruto!" yelled Hiruzen, "You're practically asking for a death wish! Do you know how many enemies your father had outside Konoha?! You'd be painting a bullseye on yourself."

"Yes, jiji, I'm dead serious. No, I don't have a death wish. I know Iwa is one of them. And frankly, I don't give a shit. I can protect myself just fine from anyone that dares attack me. And if you won't do it..." Naruto's voice dropped an octave, and his bright blue eyes narrowed, "Then I will."

"How can you say that, Naruto? You're a Genin! You aren't strong enough yet! Hell, I'm surprised you even know about your parents to begin with. How did you find out, anyways?" Hiruzen asked, perplexed.

"I found out because the Kyuubi told me. It's funny how a huge fox with nine tails that's sealed inside my gut is more truthful to me than the man I considered my grandfather all these years." Naruto growled.

That last sentence was a low blow to Hiruzen, who looked down shamefully before saying, "Naruto, you have to understand, all that I did, I did to try and keep you safe-"

"And you couldn't trust me enough to tell me that I have an oversized fox in my gut?!" Naruto interrupted. "I spent my entire life running away from those who tried to harm me because they saw me as the Kyuubi. All the years of the whispers, the chases, the beatings, crying myself to sleep many nights hoping that maybe the next day would be better! Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't end up mad or with some kind of inferiority complex! And now I find out that I have a large Kitsune inside a seal on my stomach, and when I meet him, he tells me I'm the son of the Yondaime Hokage?! Why, Jiji, why didn't you tell me?!"

Hiruzen stayed quiet for a long time, rather ashamed of himself.

Naruto finally decided to break the silence by saying, "I expect you to hold the village-wide gathering in the two days I've mentioned, _Hokage-sama_." This made Hiruzen flinch visibly. "And know that if anyone asks about my parentage or the Kyuubi, whose actual name is Kurama by the by, I _will _answer them with the truth. However, if they come banging at your door demanding explanations, it'll be on you to tell them, since you withheld the information." Hiruzen nodded. "Also, did my father leave me _anything_?"

"Yes, he did actually." Hiruzen said, getting up and going to the picture of Minato hanging to his left. He moved the picture away, did a few hand signs, bit his thumb, and pressed the bloody digit to the wall, whereupon a seal appeared, glowed, and in a puff of smoke, there in Hiruzen's hand was a scroll.

"That's it?" Naruto said, a little disappointed.

"Take a look at it," Hiruzen said, passing the scroll to Naruto, who opened it and found it to be a letter that read:

_Dear Naruto, _

_I'm writing this on borrowed time. The Kyuubi no Yoko is rampaging around Konoha as I write this, but I can't leave my only son and a future jinchūriki without anything. _

_First of all, I want to say that I'm proud of you son. Though I won't be there to see you grow, you're the greatest thing that happened to me and your mother Kushina. I'm so deeply sorry for all that will befall you in the coming years. I hope that the people of Konoha see you as a great hero for holding back the Kyuubi all this time, but deep inside, I know that won't be the case. But don't worry, you won't be alone. Your mother and I will always be watching you, even if we aren't there. I suppose it's not much consolation to call myself your father and apologize for sealing a large fox in your stomach, but I'm not left with much choice. I hope you understand that, and that you hold no ill will towards me, although I'd understand if you do. _

_But son, you must also understand that I have many enemies, and that if you begin to carry the Namikaze name with you, you should be prepared to deal with places such as Iwagakure. For that reason, I have placed five seals on the back of this scroll that will release to your blood. I have stored some of my chakra on them so you don't need to add your own. _

_The first seal contains scrolls on some of the jutsu I was able to record and seal here. These include the __**Rasengan **__and the __**Hiraishin**__, among others. Along with those are some jutsu that your mother specialized in. _

_The second seal contains ten of my __**Hiraishin **__tri-pronged kunai, as well as a scroll describing how to create them, since they were specially designed. I hope you find a way to use them effectively. _

_The third seal includes books on fūinjutsu and its uses, and also some special books on chakra techniques and exercises. Study them well. _

_The fourth seal contains a photo book with pictures of Kushina and I, as well as pictures of the now gone Uzushiogakure, which was destroyed long ago during war. It also contains a book with the history of Uzushiogakure. _

_And the final seal has three different keys. They are all also sealed, so you'll need blood to use them. The first is the key to the entrance of the Namikaze estate. The second is to a special safe that is in the main house. You'll have to search to find it. And the final key unlocks everything else around the estate that belonged to the Namikaze, which is now yours. _

_I hope you have a prosperous life, son. And know that, no matter what happens, Kushina and I are deeply proud of you, and love you unconditionally. _

_With love, _

_Minato Namikaze. _

By the end of the letter, Naruto was in tears. _'They... they really loved me...'_

Kakashi was surprised by Naruto's reaction, as was Hiruzen, but both were shocked when Naruto ran up to Hiruzen and hugged him tightly, making the old man smile.

"Thank you, Jiji. Thanks for everything!" Naruto said, before running out of the office.

Both men stared at the door for a second, then turned to each other.

"Uh... Kakashi, did Naruto seem a bit... strange to you?" Hiruzen said.

Kakashi sighed and said, "No stranger than the things I've seen him do."

"What do you mean?"

Kakashi realized that Naruto hadn't explained his bloodline abilities to Hiruzen, and then he noticed that Naruto hadn't included him in the angry rant he'd given. He scowled, thinking, _'Damn you, Naruto, leaving me to explaining this...'_ He then promptly sat down to give the Hokage a detailed explanation.

**Meanwhile, outside the Hokage Tower... **

Naruto had just walked out of the Hokage Tower when he was meet by the sight of Sakura and Sasuke sitting on one of the benches around the tower. This wasn't weird in and of itself; what was weird was than Sakura was smiling like a giddy schoolgirl, and Sasuke was looking away from her with a slight pout. And to top it off, both of them were blushing hard enough to put Hinata's blushes to shame.

"Uh... did I miss something?" Naruto asked, trying to hold back some laughter that was threatening to burst forth.

"Uh... no, dobe, nothing." Sasuke said quickly, trying to hide his blush but failing miserably.

"So... I'm guessing that Sakura finally took away your lip virginity, huh, teme?" Naruto said, winking. Sasuke tried to punch Naruto but the blonde bent backwards, and the punch sailed harmlessly over him. Sakura giggled at Sasuke's antics, then grabbed his left arm and whispered to Naruto, "We're finally dating! And he's going to teach me how to become a stronger kunoichi!"

"Well, congratulations to the both of you. You guys have my full support," said Naruto, smiling warmly at them.

"So what did you want to talk about with Hokage-sama, dobe?" asked Sasuke.

"Come, I wanted to show you! Let's go to my father's estate!" Naruto said, grabbing Sasuke's free arm and pulling him, along with Sakura, who was still holding on to Sasuke's arm.

**Minutes later... **

Naruto stopped running when he was in front of the Hyuuga compound. Once there, he knocked and waited. His teammates caught up to him during that time.

"Why are we at the Hyuuga compound, Naruto?" Sakura asked perplexed.

"I want to pick someone else up," Naruto said before the doors in front of him opened.

A guard walked outside and looked at the trio. "Yes, how may I help you?"

"Um, we're looking for Hinata Hyuuga, sir. I was wondering if she was available." Naruto said, scratching the back of his head.

"One moment," the guard said, and retreated back inside. Team 7 waited for a while, Naruto rocking back and forth on his heels, until the door opened again and Hinata walked out, wearing her usual blue pants and cream jacket.

"Hello there, Naruto-kun." Hinata said, startling the three of them with the lack of stutter. Naruto quickly shook himself out of his shock.

"Hello Hinata-chan," Naruto said, smiling from ear to ear, "I promised you that I'd tell you when I'd be back. Now here I am. So you coming with me on a date?" Naruto asked bluntly. Sakura giggled at Naruto's attempt on asking Hinata out, while Sasuke just scoffed.

"Yes, of course, I'd love to, Naruto-kun!" Hinata said, smiling and quickly latching onto Naruto's arm in a similar manner to Sakura's hold on Sasuke.

With that, the four of them walked along to the Namikaze Estate. On the way, Naruto filled Hinata in on what happened at his team's last mission, while Sasuke and Sakura got acquainted since they didn't really knew much about each other despite being teammates.

In almost no time at all, they had reached the Namikaze Estate. Naruto quickly scanned the buildings around a large mansion that was in the middle of the Estate. They seemed to be mostly lifeless, although he was sure that would change in the future. Quickly taking out his father's letter, he looked at the back and saw five different seals. Biting his thumb, he quickly swiped the digit against the bottom seal before the wound closed. There was a puff of smoke, and suddenly three keys appeared in Naruto's hand, each one with seal markings around it. Taking the first key, a large, black one, he was about to bite his finger yet again when he felt a small tug on his pants. Looking down, he saw a small girl, who couldn't be more than four, looking at him with wide brown eyes.

Naruto got down on one knee to look the kid in the eye and said, "Yes?"

In a squeaky voice, the girl said, "Mister, where did you get that really big sword?"

Chuckling, Naruto said, "I got it on a shinobi mission to Nami no Kuni. My team and I had to fight this really strong ninja called Zabuza. This used to be his sword. But I took it from him and used it to fight some enemies of ours, and in the end, he gave it to me."

The girl's eyes widened at the story, as did the eyes of most people who were around them and listened to the boy's explanation. Some ninja that were walking by looked closely at the sword and recognized it as indeed being Kubikiribōchō. Many were surprised that it was the dead last and the Kyuubi holder Naruto who was able to get the sword from Zabuza when he had a Jounin-sensei with a Sharingan and the famed last Uchiha on his team. Others were afraid at the thought of the Kyuubi gaining such a strong weapon.

Then, from down the street, a yell was heard, and they saw a woman jogging towards them while yelling at her daughter to "get away from the demon boy!"

"Mister, why does my mommy call you a demon?" the little girl asked innocently.

Naruto looked at her for a few seconds, then straightened and lifted his jackets and shirt. Focusing Kurama's chakra onto his stomach, the seal appeared on his stomach, its edges glowing red. Some people backed away, scared. Naruto pointed at the seal and said, "See this?" The girl nodded, and some people also gathered around, curious. "This is a seal. Seals are things that ninja can use to do many things, from storing things to blowing things up."

Now everyone around them, even the little girl's mother, were looking at him with curiosity, although some had hate in their eyes at the memory of the Kyuubi's attack.

"Now," Naruto said, directing his words to the curious girl, "When I was just born, a great big fox with nine tails was summoned to Konoha by someone who was controlling it by a Genjutsu. A Genjutsu is a technique ninja use to make people see things that aren't there, change how people look, or if they're strong enough, control people and, sometimes, even demons. Now, the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, had to stop it somehow. But the fox was basically made of chakra, so humans couldn't kill it. Because of that, the only way to stop it was to seal it somewhere." By now, the crowd around Naruto had doubled in size, so Naruto raised his voice a little more. "The problem was, a normal person's body couldn't hold the fox, so instead the best person to seal it in was a newborn baby, since the chakra of the fox wouldn't be able to overpower chakra coils which weren't developed. Since I was the only newborn that day, I was the one chosen. So the Yondaime used a very dark jutsu called the Shikki Fūjin which took the Yondaime's soul and the evil part of the Fox's chakra, and then he sealed the rest of the Fox's chakra into me. This is where the Fox is, in this seal. *Taps the center of the seal, causing some people to take a step back* So whenever I close my eyes and go into my mind, I see this big cage in front of me, with a paper seal holding the doors closed." Everyone was entranced by Naruto's story at this point. "And that's why people call me a demon. See, many lost people they loved when the fox attacked Konoha, and, in their grief, they saw me as the fox itself. I've heard a lot of excuses: some people say that the fox took over my body, which I find strange because that would mean that while they praised the Yondaime, they didn't trust his seals enough to hold the fox down. Others say that the Yondaime turned the fox into me, which I just find stupid because if the Yondaime had the power to turn it into a baby boy, don't you think he'd also have the power to seal it somewhere where its conscience was separate from the main mind?" Some people nodded at this, while others looked unsure. Sakura and Hinata were smiling warmly at Naruto's explanation.

Turning back to his friends, Naruto unlocked the door to enter the Namikaze Estate and was halfway in before someone asked, "Wait, how do you know so my much about the Yondaime if you were just born on that day?"

Naruto stopped on his tracks, and turned around slowly, looking them over. Then, in a neutral voice, he told them, "Because I made it my business to know enough about the man who sealed the Kyuubi into his own son."

And with that, the doors clanged shut, leaving the audience stunned at the bombshell of an ending to the story time.

* * *

**And there's that! **

**So Naruto was finally able to tell Kurama's tale to at least some villagers, who thankfully didn't try to kill him. Now, let me make clear, just because these people heard his story, doesn't mean they or everyone else will immediately believe him. It's never like that in any case. But the story ****_will _****spread. That much will certainly happen. **

**As always, R&R!**


	10. Chapter 10: Fun and the Council

**Welcome to chapter 10! Thank you for the reviews, by the way! This chapter's gonna be kind of a filler, I suppose. Just some fun stuff.**

* * *

**Namikaze Estate, 6:45 PM... **

After they had left the group of people there, the four friends walked inside the estate, the girls hanging on to their respective love interests.

After admiring everything around them, Naruto took Hinata's hand and led her to the main house, while Sakura and Sasuke decided to see some of the houses around the estate.

Naruto took the third key from the trio, wiped some blood on it, and unlocked the house, holding the door open for Hinata. Once inside, both were shocked at the size of the house. It had three floors, with the main bedroom on the highest. In every floor there were two bedrooms with their own bathrooms, and on the bottom there was a living room, kitchen, exercise room that contained weights and targets, a training dojo, and a hot spring. Naruto finally came to rest at the main bedroom, with Hinata examining the training dojo then the hot spring.

Naruto, meanwhile, was checking out the main room, looking around to see if he could spot the safe his father had mentioned. He didn't know what it was that the safe could contain, but he hoped it was something that could help with changing the view of the villagers on him and his tenant.

Naruto was broken out of his musings by a pair of arms wrapping around him from behind. Not being used to this kind of contact, he stiffened and was about to break free when he heard Hinata's voice say from behind him, "Your father left you a lovely place, Naruto-kun."

Naruto relaxed, although only a little, and responded with, "Yeah. I'm glad he tried to look out for me even after his death."

"But I have to ask, Naruto-kun," Hinata said, going to the master bedroom with Naruto and sitting on the bed next to him, "Was your father really the one who sealed the... K-Kyuubi inside you?"

Naruto raised both eyebrows at the question, and gave the Hyuuga a meaningful glance.

"Yeah... he did..."

Naruto then told her the entire story he told his teammates, beginning from the Uchiha and Senju battle, and ending with the truth of Kurama's attack on the village 12 years ago. He left no detail untold, and at the end, Hinata was very much surprised at what happened to the boy she fell in love with.

Naruto looked down, not wanting to meet Hinata's eyes for fear of looking at rejection in them. He was surprised, however, when he felt Hinata's soft hands grab his face and lift it to meet her light lavender eyes, upon which was an expression of what one could call pure love.

"H-Hinata?" Naruto asked hesitantly.

"You were... a-always such a strong boy... and now... t-that I know the burden you carry... you're even stronger than I thought..." Then, slowly, Hinata began leaning in, closing her eyes, and Naruto unconsciously imitated her until their lips met in a light kiss.

For both Naruto and Hinata, the world ceased to matter. Naruto because he never knew something like this could feel so good, and Hinata because she finally realized her dream of making the boy she loved hers. They were in their own little world, and they had no intention of returning anytime soon. However, a cough from somewhere around them startled the both of them, and they broke apart and looked at the doorway of the room to see Sakura and Sasuke there, the former still hanging on to Sasuke's arm, both wearing shit-eating grins.

"You know," Sasuke said, smirking at both of them, "If you guys wanted to have some fun, you should have told us. I haven't shown Sakura the Uchiha District yet."

Sakura started laughing her ass of when she heard that, although she had to admit that the image of being alone with Sasuke in the empty Uchiha District was rather appealing to her. She was brought back to the Namikaze mansion when she noticed Naruto wagging his eyebrows up and down and wearing a devilish smirk, and managed to catch a part of what he was saying, "... love to be alone with her at an empty district, wouldn't you, _Sasuke_?"

Sakura and Sasuke both turned as red as lava when they got the implied meaning of Naruto's sentence. Sasuke spluttered and shut up, Sakura looked down and bent her knees in to try and keep her hormones down, and Hinata, although red in the face at the implication, was rolling on the bed with Naruto, both of them laughing their asses to oblivion.

Finally, their laughter subsided, and both Naruto and Hinata looked towards the foot of the bed to see Sasuke and Sakura looking at them, with smirks on their red faces. Naruto started sweating, because he knew what was next. Every time Sasuke looked at him like that, it always led to a wrestling match. Hinata, although not understanding the situation, was unnerved by the smirks. Then, before Naruto could move away from them or warn Hinata, it happened.

Sasuke and Sakura jumped on the bed, lunging at Naruto and Hinata, respectively. Naruto tried to move out of the way, but found that his body wouldn't react as fast as his thoughts. Then, when Sasuke was barely a second away from crashing against Naruto, Naruto's field of vision flashed white and suddenly Sasuke seemed to slow down to a snail's pace, allowing the slightly rattled Naruto to roll away from Sasuke and off the bed. Naruto's vision flashed again before returning to normal speed, and Naruto saw Sasuke fall on the bed face down. He quickly took his chance and jumped on Sasuke's back, pinning him on the bed. Sasuke turned his head and looked at the blonde boy on his back with shock.

"Naruto, how the hell did y- AHAHAHAHA NO NO STOP IT DOBE! NOT THAT! HAHAHAHA!" Sasuke's sentence had been cut off when Naruto began mercilessly tickling his sides, causing Sasuke to begin laughing uncontrollably. While Sasuke squirmed underneath Naruto's powerful limbs, Naruto looked over at Sakura and Hinata, the latter of whom was giving high-pitched squeals as the pinkette also mercilessly tickled her. While Hinata would be considered faster and stronger due to her training in the Gentle Fist style, Sakura's body was larger and so it was easier for the pink haired girl to hold down the bluenette.

Naruto smirked as he watched Hinata try and break free from Sakura's grip while squealing. Naruto suddenly got an idea and stopped tickling Sasuke, who began breathing hard from laughing so much. Naruto bent down and whispered his idea into Sasuke's ear, and the Uchiha slowly began to smirk, then nodded at the blonde, who released him. They got side by side and looked at the two wrestling girls.

"Oh, _Saaaaaakura-chan_," Sasuke said in a voice that was half singsong and half sensual. Sakura immediately perked up at hearing her boyfriend's voice, and wasn't prepared when Sasuke suddenly jumped on her, pinning her down and holding her hands together with one hand, while he took off her ninja sandals with the other.

"No no no, wait, SASUKE-KUN, NO, PLEASE! N- HAHAHAHA NO NO HAHAHAHA PLEASE I'M GONNA HAHAHAHA PEE MYSELF! HAHAHAHA!" Sasuke began to tickle Sakura's feet lightly as if brushing them with a feather, but began to pick up speed, making Sakura cry out in laughter even harder.

Hinata, meanwhile, had just gotten her breath back and was starting to sit up when she was tackled lightly by a blonde and black blur and sent on her back again on the bed. This time, it was Naruto who was on top of her, holding her down. This position caused Hinata's face to burn red in embarrassment as her mind began thinking... less than pure thoughts, if you know what I mean. Naruto, seeing this, wondered what to do next, until Kurama whispered something inside his mind, reminding him of something he saw in one of the Icha-Icha books Naruto read before leaving Nami no Kuni. Naruto blushed and smirked evilly at the same time.

He brought his face down close to his prisoner's face slowly, making her look directly at him, while simultaneously sliding his right hand up her left leg, his fingers brushing against her blue slacks as if he we're cautiously finger-painting her body. Hinata, feeling Naruto's fingers softly sliding up her leg, had to bite back a moan of pleasure, although Naruto heard a slight growl coming from her throat. When Naruto was barely an inch away from Hinata's face, where they could feel each other's breaths against their skins, and Naruto's fingers were at Hinata's waist, he turned his head slightly and moved past her face, his lips ending over her left ear and his hands up to her jacket's zipper, which he began to slowly and sensually slide down. While he did this, Naruto began whispering sensual things into Hinata's ear, causing her to blush beyond what was humanly possible and start bleeding from the nose.

Sakura and Sasuke, meanwhile, had stopped what they were doing to look at the pair in slight shock. Sakura was blushing at what Naruto was doing, while Sasuke was imagining what Naruto could have said to make the formerly shy Hyuuga heiress blush so much and get a nosebleed.

Finally, Naruto had completely unzipped Hinata's large jacket, and as such he opened it up enough to see her slim body but not enough so that it would leave her entirely open to prying eyes. Seeing her slim figure and her large B, going on C-Cupped breasts made Naruto almost have a nosebleed himself, but he managed to control his emotions enough to smirk at Hinata, who was gazing off into space, probably thinking of the things Naruto said, with a red face and bleeding nose. Naruto then placed all ten of his fingers on Hinata's stomach, startling the bluenette back to reality, before he gave Hinata a wide, evil grin and began tickling her quickly, making the Hyuuga cry out in laughter harder than she did when Sakura was doing it, since she at least had her jacket to shield her from some of the tickling that time. This time, however, all she had was a mesh shirt, and her bra didn't cover her stomach. Add in Naruto's strength compared to Hinata's, and the lavender-eyed girl was completely under the mercy of Naruto.

Sasuke, hearing the Hyuuga heiress laughing so much, smirked and began trailing kisses from Sakura's toes, up her uncovered leg, making Sakura moan out in pleasure. He then also got on top of Sakura, who got a nosebleed just from the position. Sasuke smirked, and then began whispering to her all the things they could do alone while in the Uchiha district, which made Sakura's nose bleed twice as hard, while sliding his hands under her pink battle dress and putting both hands at her stomach. Sakura, barely noticing Sasuke's touch, ended up in the same boat as Hinata as Sasuke began to also mercilessly tickle her.

The four of them stayed in those positions for a few minutes, with the boys tickling the girls until they were gasping for air, and the girls struggling to get out of the boys' hold. Finally, after quite some time, the guys got off of both girls and leaned back on the bed, smirking at each other, then at the girls, who were almost passed out from laughing so much.

But then, Naruto and Sasuke felt the temperature in the room drop a few degrees, and both looked up to see that Hinata and Sakura were kneeling on the bed, looking at them with their eyes hidden in shadow. Then, as if it was practiced, both girls said, "_Oh boooooyyyss... _Have you guys ever felt chakra-enhanced tickles?"

The guys' eyes widened at the idea, and before the girls could attack, Naruto grabbed Sasuke's wrist and dragged him out the room, with the two vengeful kunoichi following, their hands glowing with chakra.

**Meanwhile... **

All over Konoha, the news that were received by the little four year old girl and the group of villagers at the entrance to the Namikaze Estate that the Kyuubi jinchūriki was the son of the Yondaime Hokage and NOT the reincarnation of the Kyuubi no Kitsune were spreading like wildfire. And after someone said the news out loud and wasn't taken by the ANBU Black Ops to Ibiki and Anko, everyone began speaking it. Predictably, many in Konoha found the news hard to accept. Some declared that the Kyuubi brat was lying completely, while others began to see the similarities been Konoha's Kiiroi Senkō and Naruto Uzumaki.

**With a certain blonde Genin... **

Ino Yamanaka was absolutely pissed. She was at her family's flower shop, reading a magazine while angrily turning the pages. Reason being, a few minutes ago, someone had walked in to buy flowers and began babbling about the news of Naruto's heritage. She, at first, found it hard to believe, but even she couldn't deny the similarities Naruto shared with the Yondaime. And then she heard about Naruto's tenant, the Kyuubi no Yoko. That piece of news shocked her to the core, especially when she remembered the hateful looks and whispers Naruto for from the parents, students, and teachers at the Academy every day. And when she realized this, she felt terrible for his burden, a feeling which turned to anger when she remembered how she and her father, Inoichi, had simply stood by one day as Naruto was being chased by villagers at the age of 7.

She was still reading when the door opened and in walked Inoichi Yamanaka, the current head of the Torture and Interrogation (T&I) Department. Due to the Yamanaka clan's ability to transfer their mind to the enemy's so as to read their mind and control them to an extent, they were the best suited to weed out information from captured shinobi. However, this was not what Inoichi was thinking about. No, what Inoichi was thinking about was why his daughter was sending him such a hate-filled glare.

"Uh... honey, what's with the look?" Inoichi asked his daughter.

"Hey, _Daddy,_" Ino said, putting plenty of venom in the last word, "You want to explain to me what's this I'm hearing about my Naruto-kun being the holder of the _Kyuubi _and the _son of the Yondaime_?!" Her voice rose slightly at the end.

To say Inoichi was surprised was an understatement. His daughter knew about the Uzumaki boy's secret? But how?

As if reading his thoughts, Ino said, "I heard it from a customer. Apparently, Naruto told a group of villagers that he was both of those things. Care to explain?"

Inoichi sighed. This was gonna be a looooong night.

**At the Nara household…**

A lazy Genin by the name of Shikamaru Nara walked inside his house with his mind reeling. He'd just heard from a villager how the dobe of their graduating class, Naruto Uzumaki, had told everyone that he was the jinchūriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko, and the son of the Yondaime Hokage. What he was thinking of the most was how, with his great I.Q., he was unable to see the similarities between them. Not many people in Konoha had a blonde hair and blue eyes combination, and the last person to have them in the same manner to Naruto's was, of course, the Yondaime.

Walking into the living room after leaving his sandals at the door, he walked in to find his parents Shikaku and Yoshino sitting at the table, as if expecting him.

"Tou-san, Kaa-san…" Shikamaru said, nodding at his parents with a neutral expression on his face.

Shikaku sighed and said, "I assume you've heard the news everyone's been saying all around, huh, son?"

Shikamaru nodded, not trusting himself to say anything yet except, "… Did you know?"

With another sigh, Shikaku nodded and said, "Yes, but due to the Sandaime's law to not talk about the events of the night Kyuubi attacked, we were not able to tell you."

Shikamaru nodded again. That he could understand. What he couldn't understand, however…

"Why?"

"Hm? Why what?" Yoshino asked.

"Why didn't you do anything to help him?!" asked Shikamaru, all laziness in his voice gone.

"… I'm sorry son," Shikaku said, beginning to stand up, "But you have to understand, we were limited in what we could do for the boy and-"

"Bullshit!" Shikamaru exclaimed, shocking both his parents at his outburst, "I've seen plenty of people help Naruto, despite those who hated him and harmed him! Teuchi and Ayame-chan are two of those kind of people! They've given him free ramen more times than I've said, 'Troublesome'!" His parents raised their eyebrows, Shikaku at the revelation that Teuchi Ichiraku was like that with Naruto, and Yoshino at the fact that Shikamaru referred to Ayame with the '-chan' suffix. "So don't come tell me that you couldn't do anything! If restaurant owners could do something like that, so could you!"

Shikaku and Yoshino's heads dropped, realizing their son was right. With a simple motion, Shikaku told his son to sit down on one of the empty seats next to him. Then, he told his son the story of Naruto Uzumaki's birth, leaving no detail behind.

And he wasn't alone. Around the other shinobi estates, the children were confronting their parents about the issue of Naruto and his secrets, secrets that they felt were kept from him for no clear reason.

Choji confronted his parents in the same way that Shikamaru did his, showing how similar they were despite their clear differences.

Kiba, despite not knowing Naruto as well as some other Genin, had shared ramen with the blonde powerhouse on occasions, sparred with him, and even went on some pranking sprees with the boy. From what he knew, he wasn't a bad kid in any sense of the word. This was the argument he brought to his mother Tsume when he confronted her about Naruto. Tsume, just like the other clan heads, told the boy that what they could do for Naruto was limited, to which Kiba responded with the same logic as Shikamaru. At the end of their one-sided argument, Kiba had stormed out of the house with Akamaru hot on his heels.

Sakura, Sasuke, and Hinata had left Naruto's house by this time, albeit Hinata doing so a bit grudgingly.

Sakura had gone home and confronted her parents about Naruto being the Kyuubi's container, to which Sakura's mother Mebuki Haruno had yelled at her daughter for trying to side with the 'demon'. Sakura's father, Kizashi, had said nothing for either side, since he didn't believe in the same idea his wife did but didn't do much for the boy either. When Sakura told her parents about Naruto's parentage, Mebuki had outright refused to believe it and called Naruto a 'dirty liar'. Kizashi had pointed out to his wife about the similarities between Minato, Kushina, and Naruto, and how Naruto needed blood to open the Namikaze Estate, which managed to shut Mebuki up for the time being. Sakura was grateful at her father's intervention but held much resent for her mother's treatment of Naruto.

Sasuke, when he arrived at his clan's estate, began researching all he could on the Mangekyō Sharingan and how to obtain it. While he did this, he also wondered how powerful Naruto would be with the Sharingan and was secretly thankful that the only other person he knew that had the Sharingan in their DNA was Itachi, although the memory of the nukenin brought a grimace to his mind.

Hinata, meanwhile, went directly to her father's room and confronted him with Naruto's secret. Hiashi was at first surprised that Hinata knew so much of Naruto's past, but Hinata quickly explained that Naruto himself told her. She also told him that Naruto was now living in the Namikaze Estate and had told a group of villagers the truth about the night of the Kyuubi's attack. If Hiashi was surprised that Naruto knew about his parentage, he didn't show it. Instead, he told Hinata, and Hanabi when she was found spying on them that his power as a clan head was limited, to which Hinata responded in the same way her fellow Genin had.

All in all, the young people of Konoha had lost much respect for their elders.

**The Next Day…**

Naruto woke up on his parent's bed, wearing just a pair of boxers. He got up and went to shower until he remembered that, since the bills of the Namikaze Estate hadn't been paid in almost 13 years, there was no running water. He went to the bill collector and paid for it using the money he got from Gatō's safe as well as the money he earned from the A-Rank mission, then returned at filled the hot spring to maximum capacity, whereupon he dove in and relaxed in the waters.

He didn't know how long he spent there relaxing, just that he was interrupted after a while by a knock on the door. He got up and shifted a towel on his body, then went to answer it.

There at the door was an ANBU, who simply said, "Namikaze-san, the council, as well as the Hokage, request your presence."

Naruto simply nodded and asked how to get there. When he'd been given directions, he looked at the ANBU with a deadpan look and said, "And by the way, it's Uzumaki-Namikaze, not just the latter." Then he shut the door.

Going to the room he was staying at, he looked at a full-length mirror and shifted into a different outfit than the one he's had for the last few days. Instead of the two jackets and shirt, on his torso he shifted a simple black shirt with the Uzumaki spiral on it. Over that went a trench coat similar to the Yondaime's, but it was black with yellow flames at the bottom, and on the outside of the tall neck was a large hoodie that was able to cover his head entirely. He wore baggy shorts that had four pockets large enough for kunai and shuriken, and black ninja sandals. His hitai-ate went on his forehead as always, and he strapped Kubikiribocho across his back on a strap that went across his chest.

With his outfit complete, he walked out of his house and jumped from rooftop to rooftop to the Hokage tower, successfully avoiding the crowd on the streets below. He didn't want to have to deal with people until tomorrow when hopefully Hiruzen would tell Konoha about everything.

Once he was in front of the council chambers, he drew a deep breath and went in. Everybody's head turned to him, and he looked right back, not intimidated at all by the slight killer intent being sent to him by the entire civilian council, especially from a woman that had shoulder-length blonde hair with a single bang which fell down into her face. He walked up to an empty seat and sat, crossing one leg perpendicularly over the other and leaning his arm behind the seat of the chair.

"Well, what am I here for? I got training to do," Naruto said, already having a good idea.

"You will speak respectfully to us, _boy_." Said a chubby civilian, glaring at him, something Naruto did right back, adding plenty of Killing Intent. (KI)

"I speak respectfully to those that have earned my respect. You high-and-mighty good for nothings have done nothing to earn that. Actually, it's been quite the opposite." Naruto said, directing his speech at the civilian council, who seethed at the tone of the boy.

"Now, now," Hiruzen said, stepping up to stand next to the seated Naruto, "Can we begin this meeting?"

Standing up, a man with bandages covering his forehead, right eye, and right arm, and an X shaped scar on his chin, addressed Hiruzen, "It has come to the council's attention that this boy has told a number of people about the Kyuubi and has claimed to be Minato Namikaze's son, when we were told that Minato had no descendants. He has also taken up residence inside the Namikaze Estate. We wish to know why this is so."

"Well, Danzō, I believe we can answer that," Hiruzen said to the now seated Danzō, "However, it shall be upon Naruto-kun to explain how he learned of his parentage and to explain of his _bloodline._" Hiruzen stated, putting plenty of emphasis on the last word.

Both the civilian and shinobi councils were startled at the revelation that the Kyuubi jinchūriki had a bloodline. The civilian council immediately began yelling that it was a lie or that he had to have stolen it, while the shinobi side simply studied Naruto, who hadn't moved a muscle with the exception of a smirk playing on his face.

After Hiruzen managed to subdue the council, he turned to Naruto with reproachful eyes and said, "Naruto, care to explain?"

Naruto closed his eyes, sighed, and nodded. Standing up, he began his tale.

He started by explaining how he made contact with the Kyuubi inside his mind during his mission to Nami no Kuni. He explained most things that the Kyuubi had told Naruto, including its name. He explained how Kurama had described the battle between Hashirama and Madara, and then explained why he attacked Konoha when he didn't even want to. He told them of how the Mangekyo Sharingan that had controlled Kurama felt different than the real Madara Uchiha's Mangekyo, and about his death and revival during the sealing. And finally, he brought out the scroll his father had left him and passed it around, having taken out everything within the seals before coming to the meeting so that no one could steal or destroy anything.

By the end of his tale, everyone was in some kind of shock. The civilian council, including Homura, Koharu, and Danzo were wondering why this was kept from them, while the shinobi clan heads were surprised the Kyuubi was so friendly towards its host. Finally, Danzo spoke.

"Hold on, what is this bloodline you mentioned, Hiruzen?"

Everyone looked at Naruto, expecting answers. Sighing again, he got up and explained.

"I'm not sure it's a bloodline. I'd class it more as a virus that reanimated me when I died at the time of the sealing. But regardless, it still gives me skills that I'd consider a bloodline has, since apparently it's for my use alone. First and foremost, I have increased strength, speed, agility, and flexibility. If I focus my power, I can probably match Tsunade, the great Sannin. My speed, while I haven't tried it out fully, is rather fast. I can outrun a cheetah easily at full speed." These descriptions sent ripples of wonder throughout the council. "I have the ability to shapeshift as well. This goes from full body shapeshifting *shapeshifts into one of Gatō's men that he'd absorbed, surprising the entire council, then turned back* to only one part of me, like an arm or leg. Which brings me to my third ability... weapon shapeshifting. *Shifts arms into claws, which caused some of the civilian council to shriek in fear* With enough imagination and biomass, which is what the Kyuubi calls the tendrils around my body, I can create a number of weapons. Right now, I'm limited to just these claws, which I created by extensively studying the Kyuubi's claws. And my final ability..." Pause for dramatic effect, "... is consumption. Whenever I kill a being, I have the option to consume them.

"YOU EAT PEOPLE?!" Yelled the blonde civilian woman.

"*Sigh* No, I don't. When I say consume, I mean absorb. My tendrils break down the body of the one being absorbed on a cellular level and absorb their DNA. With that, I can gain whatever skills and possibly bloodlines that they may have." The entire room went bug-eyed. "For example, when we were fighting Zabuza Momochi and his lackey Haku, Haku sacrificed herself when I was going to impale Zabuza with my claws. In turn, when I stabbed my claws into her, my hand absorbed some of her blood, and in turn, her DNA. And since Haku had a kekkei genkai of Hyōton, I'm pretty sure I have it as well now. The only reason I can't use it is because I don't have my own chakra." At that, Naruto swore her saw the civilian side look absolutely relieved. "Also, if I absorb the person's brain along with the body, I gain the memories that the person might have, which allows me to disguise myself better when sneaking someplace."

"Well, that's a lot to know, Naruto-kun." Hiruzen said, looking stunned at the revelation. "Can this 'virus' be transmitted?"

"... Unless I inject it into someone, I don't think so." Naruto responded.

"Alright, well, have you heard of the Chunnin Exams?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"They're going to be held here in Konoha this year, a month from now. I'm telling you because I've already asked the Jounin-sensei if they wanted to promote their teams for the exams, and Kakashi has promoted Team 7." Hiruzen responded, smiling.

"Really?! Sweet!" Naruto yelled, jumping in the air and pumping his fist.

"Alright, Naruto, enough of that. Another thing you should be aware of is that you can't be Uzumaki-Namikaze clan leader until you make at least Jounin. However, right now, you still qualify for the Clan Restoration Act, where you can take multiple wives to repopulate your-"

"No!" Naruto exclaimed, surprising everyone else.

"Why not, Naruto?" Hiruzen said, a stern look on his face.

"If my children want to go under that, that's fine by me, but I won't. Right now, there's only one girl that I can say I possibly love, but I don't want any more than her." Naruto explained heatedly.

The council as well as the Hokage all stared at him with wide eyes. Then, the Hokage smiled.

"Very well, Naruto-kun. As you wish. You may leave now if you wish."

Naruto smiled at his surrogate grandpa. "Thanks Jiji."

He then left back home to train.

* * *

**The two main pairings (NaruHina and SasuSaku) have had some fun! And I've given a hint for a future pairing! *Wink Wink* Also, Naruto has dealt with the council bastards! Will there be any assassination attempt?! Will there be problems with a certain war hawk?!**

**'Till next time!**


	11. Chapter 11: The Month Before the Exams

**Konohagakure, The Namikaze Estate, almost a month after the meeting with the Council...**

Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze currently lay on his bed, or more specifically, his deceased parents' bed. Ever since he began living in the Namikaze Estate, he found that he slept more peacefully on this bed, almost as if the spirits of his parents were watching him in the afterlife. He had continued to sleep there ever since, and was rather comfortable with it. But right now, he wasn't thinking about that.

Right now, he was staring at the ceiling, going through the blur that were the days that led up to now, the night before the Chunnin Exams' first day. His mind was currently on the day after he met with the Council.

**Flashback no Jutsu! **

_Naruto was currently flying to the Hokage Tower to meet with the Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen. Upon arriving, he walked in, ignored the mixed look of disbelief and anger on the secretary's face, and walked directly into the Hokage's office where, unknowingly to the blonde, Hiruzen was currently in an argument with the three Elders of the Council: Koharu, Homura, and Danzo. _

_"Sarutobi, you can't be serious! Do you know how much unrest the revelation of the Kyuubi's fate and the Uzumaki brat's heritage will cause?!" Koharu exclaimed at Hiruzen. _

_"Your fears are unnecessary, Koharu," Hiruzen responded, "I have had a number of both civilians and shinobi come to me demanding explanations about Naruto's status. It seems Naruto himself told a number of people his story outside the Namikaze Estate. Many have denied it, but the more level-headed ones came to me asking, and I have calmed them by telling them I'd explain it today. I promised it to Naruto, and I don't plan on breaking that promise." Hiruzen said, looking coldly at the Elders. _

_All four, however, were startled when they heard clapping coming from the door, and they all whirled around to find Naruto, dressed in a red shirt, black ANBU pants, ninja sandals, and a black trench coat similar to the Yondaime's but with a hood and no flames on the bottom, clapping his hands and looking at the Hokage. Koharu and Homura immediately gritted their teeth in anger, while Danzo looked undisturbed. Hiruzen was sweatdropping. _

_"Was that really necessary, Naruto?" Hiruzen asked. _

_Naruto simply shrugged, and would have said something had Homura not yelled, "ANBU! Arrest this demon at once for breaking the secrecy law of the Kyuubi!"_

_The ANBU in the room materialized and looked at the Hokage for confirmation. Homura, noticing this, yelled, "What are you waiting for?! Arrest him!"_

_"No," Hiruzen simply said, and at that word, Homura turned to the Hokage and asked, "Why the fuck not?! He broke the rule, did he not?!"_

_"No, he didn't," Hiruzen replied, then continued, "You seem to have conveniently forgotten that I stated in the law that the only ones who may speak freely of the secret were me and the one who the law referred to, in this case Naruto. So he didn't break any laws. Secondly, considering Naruto told people himself, and so many others were talking about it, I repelled the law yesterday so that they may speak of it freely."_

_Koharu and Homura were angry beyond belief, while Danzo's visible eye showed barely restrained annoyance. Suddenly, in a swirl of leaves, an ANBU in a cat mask appeared inside the office and said, "Sandaime-sama, the entirety of the village is gathered outside now."_

_"Thank you, Neko. I shall be there shortly." Neko bowed and nodded at Naruto, who waved lazily, before disappearing. Hiruzen stood up and began to walk out when Homura's hand landed on his shoulder. _

_"This is not over, Sarutobi!" he exclaimed furiously. _

_Hiruzen gave him a cold glance. "Wrong. This was over nearly 13 years ago when Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze was born. So spare me the charades. Come, Naruto, let's move." Hiruzen walked out, followed by Naruto, who glared back at the Elders. He could practically feel the old, mummy-like old man's brain whirring as it worked. And he had a gut feeling it was about him._

_Shrugging, he walked out and followed Hiruzen to the outside balcony made for Hokage speeches. Hiruzen was already there, along with a tall man with long, spiky white hair tied around the nape of his neck, and two shoulder-length bangs that framed his face. The rest of his bangs were held back by a gray horned hitai-ate with the Kanji for 'Oil'. He wore a green short shirt kimono and matching pants; under which he wore mesh armor that showed out of the sleeves and legs of his outfit. He sported hand guards, a simple black belt, traditional Japanese geta (wooden sandals), a red haori with two simple yellow circles on each side, and a scroll on his back. This man was Jiraya, one of the three legendary Sannin trained by Sarutobi Hiruzen. Around him and his teacher were a few ANBU._

_When Jiraya saw Naruto, his eyes widened and his mouth hung agape. He whispered out, "Minato…" before composing himself and approaching Naruto. When he was in front of the blonde boy, he knelt down to Naruto's eye level and neutrally asked, "Are you… Naruto Uzumaki?"_

_Naruto looked into Jiraya's eyes and, in an equally neutral voice, said, "No. I'm Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze. And you are?"_

_Jiraya's eyes widened again, before he completely bent down, hands forward in Naruto's direction as if he were worshipping a deity, shocking almost everyone present, but none more than Naruto. Finally, the man straightened and spoke. "My name is Jiraya, one of the three Legendary Sannin. And… I'm also your godfather." At this, Naruto's mouth opened, although no sound came out. Jiraya quickly continued. "Your father, Minato, was my student, and the one I've been the most proud of. He and his wife Kushina had named you after a character in my first book, 'The Gutsy Ninja'. This made me your godfather." Again, Naruto opened his mouth, but couldn't speak, although Jiraya could see the smallest hint of a tear on the blonde's left eye. "After your father sacrificed himself to defeat the Kyuubi, I asked what happened to you, and was told you died shortly after birth. Unable to bear the pain of losing my best pupil and friend, and then failing his son, I left Konoha. I never returned, only sent information about my spy network. I only came back now because I heard you were indeed alive. And I have to say… I'm so glad you are, and I'm so sorry for leaving you alone all this time!" Without warning, Naruto suddenly jumped forward and hugged Jiraya, startling the white-haired man. Jiraya hugged back, but couldn't help but ask, "You… you're not angry?"_

"_How could I be angry? It wasn't your fault." Naruto feebly responded, pulling back to show Jiraya that he was slightly crying of happiness. "I thought I had no family at all. And now… I find that I do. I have a godfather! And not just any godfather, one of the kickass legendary Sannin!" He cried happily and hugged Jiraya again, the latter of whom hugged back with tears of his own. _

_What they didn't know was that nearly everyone around them, including some of the crowd, had seen and heard this bout of happiness, and many couldn't help but tear up at this, despite their previous hate of the Kyuubi jinchūriki. _

_Finally, the two parted, and bowed to each other, Jiraya's lower than Naruto's, then faced the Hokage, who looked on to the crowd._

"_Citizens of Konoha… I have gathered you all here to give you news that haven't reached the ears of Konoha people for more than a decade. I'm here to talk about… the attack of the Kyuubi on Konoha."_

_Many people murmured at this, while the young people shifted._

"_Now, for this, I have brought the container of the Kyuubi himself, to help explain some things. Naruto, if you will." Naruto walked up and looked down at the crowd. Many of the young people in the crowd gasped at what they heard, while many of the grownups narrowed their eyes at the boy in suspicion._

"_Now, many of you know this story. The demon fox appears in Konoha and attacks the village. Our troops attempt to subdue it, but it resists. Then, the Yondaime Hokage, Minato Namikaze, appears and manages to take the fox away from the village, then kill it." Murmurs rose up from the crowd. "That story…"_

"… _Is dead wrong." Naruto finished, and the crowd shifted its focus from the Hokage to the blonde Genin._

"_What do you mean, Naruto-kun?" Rock Lee asked from the crowd, gaining nods from the rest of the Konoha 12 and some villagers._

"_That is a twisted version of what truly happened." Naruto continued. "The Sandaime placed a law that prevented anyone from talking about the Kyuubi, and the law naturally extended to textbooks. He did it so that I could have a shot at a normal childhood, which we now know was a bit foolish, but with good intentions. Nevertheless, I am here to say the true story."_

_"What true story?!" Random Villager (RV) #1 asked. _

_Naruto began by explaining the battle between Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha at the Valley of the End. Next, he followed up with the circumstances of his parents and birth. Many villagers cried out bloody murder when he said he was the son of the Yondaime and Kushina Uzumaki, one of the greatest Jounin in the village. However, both Hiruzen and Jiraya came to his defense at this point. Hiruzen explained how he wedded Minato and Kushina in secret because of the fear for their future against the ones who hated them. He also brought out some files that contained Naruto's birth certificate, the will of his parents, and blood samples that connected Naruto to Minato. Jiraya then stepped forward and explained how Minato had named Naruto after the main character in his first book, which both Minato and Kushina loved. This made him Naruto's godfather. He also explained how he had received word that Naruto had died shortly after birth, and why he left. _

_After the explanations, the crowd was flabbergasted and regretful. The former because they had never believed the jinchūriki would be the son of the Yondaime, and the latter because they had spat on the Yondaime's wishes. _

_Following that, he went on and described what happened at his birth. How a rogue Uchiha controlled Kyuubi with his Eien no Mangekyō Sharingan and summoned him inside Konoha, where he proceeded to attack as per the Uchiha's orders. He noticed some people glance darkly at his teammate Sasuke, upon which he quickly told them not to judge the entire clan because of the actions of one. This made them relax, if only a little. He continued by explaining the sealing of the good half of the Kyuubi into him, and the bad half into his father, whereupon the Shinigami took both their souls into its stomach. _

_At the end, people were even more flabbergasted. Fortunately, there was no more explaining to do. He concluded by saying that he felt no different towards the villagers. He wasn't angry at them, but at the same time, he made it clear that he didn't want anyone giving him special treatment because of who his father was, at which point Konohamaru, Hiruzen's grandson, began chanting his name in earnest, followed by the Konoha 12, then almost the entire crowd. Naruto smiled and bowed, then shifted his wings out, surprising many, especially his fellow Genin, and flew away to the Namikaze Estate, leaving Hiruzen to finish things up. _

**Flashback no Jutsu, Kai!**

From then on, life got better for Naruto. People actually respected him, the villagers because he was the son of their greatest Hokage, and the shinobi because they heard of his battles at Nami no Kuni and his abilities. Where he walked, people either greeted him with smiles, bowed to him, or, in some small cases, still treated him with scorn, although these were people who still hated the Kyuubi.

What he loved the most was that his relationship with Hinata was flourishing. It went like a normal relationship at first, until one day where they hit a small bump, and came out even more in love.

**Flashback, a week after the speech... **

_Naruto was currently training in his Estate's training ground at night. He was trying to find a way to use the Hiraishin kunai of his father with Kurama's chakra, while trying not to overload the seal on them. So far, he'd managed to teleport a few times, but by the fifth 'jump', he would overload it. _

_He was shaken out of his training when he felt as if he were being watched. Looking around, he could see very little, and the moonlight wasn't enough to see around him. He closed his eyes and focused biomass into his eyes, activating his Thermal Vision. Looking around again, he finally spotted a heat source behind one of the trees to his left, large enough to be a human. Instead of calling out to the watcher, he focused on one of the seal formulas he'd placed near that place, which happened to be on the tree next to the one there watcher was hiding behind. He focused Kurama's chakra and flashed to the tree, startling the watcher, who feel on her butt with a small 'eep'of surprise. Naruto deactivated the Thermal Vision and looked at his watcher, whereupon he froze. _

_"Hinata-chan?" he asked incredulously. _

_Hinata slowly got up and looked down to the ground in her shy demeanor, then looked back up at Naruto, and the blonde could see tears in her eyes. _

_"N-Naruto-kun... I... I came to... say that..." Hinata stuttered out. _

_"Say what, Hinata-chan?" Naruto asked, fearing the worst. _

_"T-To say that... We... Sh-should... break up!" Hinata finished hysterically, then started sobbing. _

_Naruto was stunned. Just yesterday, they'd gone out on a date to Ichiraku's Ramen and had a great time, and now she wanted to break up?_

_"... But why? Why, Hinata-chan? Did I do something wrong? Please, tell me!" Naruto cried out to her, shaking her out of her stupor. _

_Hinata looked at him with eyes that shone with love, yet at the same time, despair and... was that annoyance?_

_"We just should, Naruto-kun!" Hinata exclaimed. _

_At this, Naruto became suspicious. One, Hinata went from shy and stuttering to loud and exclamatory. Secondly, she would never decide something without explaining to him her decision. _

_Narrowing his eyes, he surreptitiously lobbed a Hiraishin kunai behind Hinata, whereupon he flashed behind the girl, starting her. Before she could turn, Naruto chopped the back of her neck, rendering her unconscious, whereupon Naruto grabbed her by the arm and held her up. A second later, in a poof of smoke, Hinata's form disappeared and was replaced by the purple wearing form of Ino Yamanaka. However, something was different about Ino. Her usual full-body wrappings were missing, and this meant that Naruto could see her flat stomach and a small part of her panties, which were barely covered by the loose skirt she wore. Instead of a bra, she wore a fishnet chest covering which did little to cover her assets, and the usual short, loose, purple shirt over that. All in all, she looked ready to seduce someone, and Naruto had a good idea who that someone was._

_So, with that thought, he took hold of Ino's limp body and tied her upside down to a tree. Her top and skirt both moved down following the pull of gravity, and left her chest and panties out in full view. This made Naruto have a small nosebleed, but he shook it off and left her there, walking to the Hyuuga Compound._

_Minutes later, Ino began to stir. She opened her eyes to find that she couldn't move, and looked up to see the ground where the sky should be. Concluding that she was upside down, she looked around for some help when a flash of red light appeared right in front of her. When she looked at it and the light dissipated, she found the two people she didn't want to see right now: Naruto and Hinata, both of which had narrowed their eyes at her._

"_So… Ino…" Naruto began._

"_Care to explain why you were impersonating me?" Hinata finished._

_Ino tried to look as innocent as possible. "What do you mean?"_

_Naruto narrowed his eyes even further. "Don't play with us, Ino. You tried to break me and Hinata up by impersonating her." He walked up to her and lowered her a little until they were eye to eye. "I know you had a crush on me but I didn't expect you to go this far."_

_Ino looked sheepish, then regretful. "I'm sorry… it's just… I've liked you since I saw you, and I've been trying so hard to get your affections. But you never returned them." She seemed ready to cry, and Naruto, wanting to cheer her up slightly, gave her his usual foxy smile, causing her eyes to widen._

"_I understand, Ino. But the thing is, I'm already in a relationship, and I really have feelings for Hinata-chan. I… I don't really know what to tell you. I'm flattered you feel so strongly about me, but I'm already with Hina-chan."_

_Ino looked even sadder, and both Hinata and Naruto took pity on her. Hinata walked up to Naruto and tapped his shoulder, and when he turned, gave him a bright smile. "Hey, Naruto-kun…"_

"_Yes, Hinata-chan?" Naruto asked._

"_Aren't you eligible for the CRA? Maybe you can be with both of us." Hinata said slyly. _

_Naruto and Hinata both gaped at her. Naruto because he forgot about the CRA, Ino because she didn't know that that was possible, and both thinking about how it was HINATA of all people that suggested this._

_Naruto closed his mouth and looked at Hinata. "Hinata-chan, I didn't want to accept that because I didn't want more than one girlfriend. I thought I could grow to love only you. Isn't that what a relationship entails?" _

"_Yes, Naruto-kun," Hinata acknowledged, "But I feel sorry for stealing you from Ino in a way. Besides, I think I'll need some help anyways to deal with you." She added with a giggle, and both Ino and Naruto sweatdropped then laughed along with her. Hinata regained her composure and looked at them both with a knowing smile. "Besides, you already saw Ino's 'assets'. I don't think she'd mind showing you a bit further, would she?" Naruto froze while Ino looked to her body and noticed that her top had moved down and since she wasn't wearing a bra, her breasts were out in the open, not being covered enough by the fishnet chest binding. She made an 'eep' sound and blushed like a tomato, then looked at Naruto and noticed his equally red blush. _

"_N-Naruto-kun…" she began "D-did… yo-y-you actually look at m-m-my… breasts?" she whispered._

_Naruto looked at her, then slowly nodded. Ino's eyes widened, then she looked down (up) and blushed even harder. Hinata, looking at this exchange, was on the floor laughing her ass off, and Naruto ended up copying her when he realized the absurdity of the situation. Ino glared at them both, then began laughing as well. _

_Naruto and Hinata finally got off the floor, chuckling a bit, and walked away._

"_Hey! Aren't you gonna get me down from here?!" Ino yelled at them._

_A yellow, three-pronged kunai flew towards her and cut the rope perfectly. Ino yelped when she saw that, but before she could fall, a pair of arms grabbed her and, looking up, she noticed Naruto holding her._

"_Sorry about that." He said sheepishly, and began untying her, Ino blushing like crazy the whole time._

**Flashback has ended… again!**

He had gone to Hiruzen the day after to tell him that he would accept the CRA but limit it to just Hinata and Ino. The Hokage had agreed wholeheartedly and wrote it up.

After that day, Naruto began going on dates with both Hinata _and _Ino, and began to fall more and more for Ino as well. Hinata still held the biggest spot in his heart, but Ino was starting to reach her.

Taking his mind off of his girlfriends for now, he then thought about the two new powers he acquired, besides the Hiraishin. One was what he called the **Kyuubi Rikudou** (**Nine Tails Chakra Mode**) which he had acquired about a week before the Chunnin Exams.

**Another Flashback!**

_Naruto sat at the training grounds of his Estate, meditating. On another part of the training grounds_, _Hinata and Ino were practicing their taijutsu. Ino was trying to add water (which she'd found was her main affinity) as an added power to her punches and kicks. Hinata was attempting to do the same, but with ice instead. See, about a week before this, Naruto had given Hinata a gift. He'd asked her to cut her palm and hold it out, whereupon he gathered some of the __**Hyōton**__ DNA he'd gotten from Haku, compressed it into a tight biomass ball, and allowed it to enter her open cut, whereupon it had spread to her entire body. She had felt pain at first, but not by much, and the day after she found that she could now use the __**Hyōton**__ bloodline as well as this Haku could. _

_Anyways, back to the training, Naruto was currently studying the biomass on his body, trying to find ways to create a weapon out of them. So far, he only had his claws, but for him that wasn't enough. _

_He moved his right arm out in front of him, palm up, and focused biomass into it. Tendrils began shifting around it, moving like worms in the dirt. He was about to move as much biomass as he could into the arm when he heard a low rumbling and was aware of an itch that started on his torso and began spreading. Kurama's voice then rang out, "__**Kit, it's time!**__"_

_'Time?! For what-?' _

_Naruto wasn't able to finish when suddenly his entire body began to feel as if it was burning in pain. Naruto screamed and fell on his back, writhing in pain. He was barely aware of two people appearing above him, but another wave of pain went through his body. _

_Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the pain subsided slowly. Naruto opened his eyes and looked up to see Hinata and Ino looking at him worriedly. He began to sit up but only managed to lift his torso up and lean on his elbows. He felt very sore. Hinata's voice snapped him back to reality. _

_"Naruto-kun, are you alright?"_

_"Alright?!" Ino asked her incredulously. "Look at him, of course he's not alright!"_

_"I'm fine now," Naruto simply said, "Just sore as hell. I need to speak with Kurama. One sec, girls."_

_'Kurama, what happened?!'_

_"__**I think it's best if you come see for yourself.**__" Kurama's voice rang out. _

_Naruto closed his eyes and focused in his mindscape, and in what felt like a swirl, he went into his mind. _

_But something was different. Instead of the dreary sewer that contained a sealed cage, he was in what appeared to be a large underground cave. In front of him was a sight he was not expecting: Kurama, in all his large glory, was laying down in front of him... and there didn't seem to be anything holding him! _

_"Kurama! You're free!" Naruto exclaimed. _

_Kurama chuckled and said, "__**As much as I'd like to be, kit, I'm not free. Simply put, my chakra has finished transferring to you. My power is now available for you to wield.**__"_

_Naruto stood there, dumbfounded. "… Why so soon?"_

"_**Maybe it was because of your constant use of biomass?**__" Kurama hypothesized._

_Naruto shrugged noncommittally and said, "Well, what does this give me?"_

_"__**Honestly... I don't really know.**__" Kurama admitted sheepishly. Naruto sweatdropped. "__**None of my previous jinchūriki have ever mastered my chakra. So I don't really know what would happen. I just know you can use it as your own chakra right now.**__"_

"_So why aren't you in your cage?" Naruto asked._

"_**I think the seal was meant to hold my chakra until you were fully able to use it all. It simply released me when all the chakra was out. I think I saw the image of your father and mother inside the seal, but I'm not sure.**__"_

_Naruto got into a thinking pose and pondered the situation. "Maybe they put their chakra into the seal to help me master the chakra should I ever need to. That's the best explanation I can come up with."_

_**In an Alternate Universe…**_

_Both Naruto and Kushina sneezed violently. _

"_Someone must be talking about us." Kushina commented._

"_Yeah, probably." Naruto agreed. "Anyways, tell me more about how you two fell in love!"_

_Kushina blushed the color of her hair and told him the story._

_**Back with our Naruto…**_

_Naruto said goodbye to Kurama and went back to the regular world, where Ino and Hinata were looking at him with concern._

"_Well?!" Ino asked impatiently. "What did the scarf say?!"_

_Naruto chuckled and Kurama growled inside of him. "He just told me that his chakra has finished transferring into my body."_

"_So you can use it all now?" Hinata asked._

"_Yeah, just about. He still has some chakra on himself though because that's what holds his form." Naruto explained._

"_Well, tap into it!" Ino exclaimed at him. "Let's see it!"_

_Naruto got up, Hinata and Ino following suit. He then closed his eyes and searched inside him for the chakra. It didn't take long to find, considering it was HUGE! _

_Naruto tapped into the power and felt… different. Stronger. Much stronger! _

_A gasp from both Ino and Hinata made him open his eyes again. They were staring at his, wide eyed. He ran to the pond nearby and was shocked at what he saw._

_Instead of his regular, black-shirt-with-black-shorts form, Naruto was now sporting a yellow, flame-y chakra shroud that had six magatama around his neck. He had two hair-like horns on his head, and on his stomach, between two tattoo-like lines, was the Uzumaki swirl. His eyes had changed from blue to orange. _

"_Wh… what the?" Naruto exclaimed. "… I actually like the look."_

_Hinata hesitantly reached out and touched his shoulder. She pulled back, expecting to be burned, but when she didn't feel anything, she put her hand there again._

"_It… feels normal…" she said. Ino copied her and touched Naruto, and they began literally feeling him up, something that made Naruto blush. _

_Standing up, Naruto looked around and realized he could sense, not chakra, but negative thoughts. He looked towards the Hokage tower and noticed a signature that appeared normal, then went black, as if it had been tainted by ink. _

_He focused on the flow of chakra and cut it off, then felt as if he had come out of a river. He looked at both his girlfriends smiled at them._

"_Seems like I have a new ability." Naruto chuckled, and the girls followed suit._

**This Flashback Has Ended!**

Since then, Naruto had begun training to use the form. He had found that he was able to create chakra arms from practically anywhere on his torso and arms, and he was able to perform the Rasengan with them, although the spinning sphere came out red in color due to Kurama's chakra. He had also noted that he was able to move incredibly quick, practically as fast as the Yondaime when he used the **Hiraishin**.

The second ability he had acquired was when he had found Konohamaru, the grandson of the Hokage and Naruto's self-proclaimed pupil, being held by a guy in what appeared to be a cat suit…

**And yet another flashback, a week after the ****Nine Tails Chakra Mode**** ability surfaced!**

_Naruto was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, headed to Ichiraku's to get his regular bowl(s) of ramen. Halfway there, though, his ears picked up the faint sound of Konohamaru's voice, and he appeared to be crying out for someone to release him. Turning, he followed the voice and stood on a rooftop nearby to see the problem._

_Konohamaru was currently being held up by his shirt by a guy that appeared to be wearing an all-black cat suit and purple face paint. He also had… something wrapped in bandages on his back._

_Next to him was a very beautiful girl. She had eyes similar to Ino's, and blonde hair that seemed darker than his and was in four pineapple-like ponytails. She wore a single, light purple, off-the-shoulder garment that went to halfway down her thighs, with a scarlet sash tied around her waist. She also had fishnet coverings on her right calf and left thigh, and her hitai-ate on her neck. To finish she look, she also had a large metal… something on her back, looking similar to a closed fan._

_He activated his __**Kyuubi Rikudou**__ and sensed their intentions. While the girl didn't seem to have any bad thoughts, the cat-boy had a plenty of negative emotions, all aimed at Konohamaru, he assumed. He quickly dashed down to stand right behind the cat-guy, where he shifted his arms into claws and held one of the claws against the guy's neck, startling both the girl and Konohamaru._

"_I suggest you drop the kid." Naruto said in a neutral voice._

"_Hah! And why would I listen to-?" The cat-guy began, but was shut when Naruto's claw pushed harder into his neck, drawing blood that Naruto absorbed._

"_Because I doubt you want to lose your head before the Chunnin Exams, Sand Cat." Naruto said, seeing the emblem of Sunagakure on the girl's hitai-ate. "Also, I don't think you want to beat up the Hokage's grandson." The Suna cat-boy visibly paled and dropped the kid on his butt._

"_Oof! Thanks, Naruto-sensei!" Konohamaru said._

"_Anytime, Konohamaru," Naruto said, smirking at the boy and retracting his claws. Before he could address the Suna ninja, however, a ripple of pain went through his body, and his biomass began shifting on his arms. His arms then disappeared and instead became what appeared to be three large, stone like fingers. Out of reflex, Naruto moved his arms to the side and willed it to do something. The fingers then extended and attached to the fence next to them. Naruto pulled back and they retracted._

"_Huh… Tendrils… that sounds like a good name." He said to himself._

_Turning around and dismissing the Tendrils, he noticed that the Suna ninja and Konohamaru were looking at him with wide eyes and open mouths. Naruto looked at them all and said, "It's my bloodline," and their eyes grew even more._

"_Anyways, who are you two?" Naruto asked the Suna ninja._

_The girl shook off her shock and sensually walked up to Naruto, who looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She got close to him and said in a teasing voice, "The name's Temari Sabaku. And you are?" _

"_Naruto… Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze," Naruto said neutrally, and he had to restrain back laughter when he witnessed the two Suna ninja's eyes widen further._

"_So… you're the son of the Kiiroi Senko?!" Sand Cat asked._

"_Yep, I am… I'm sorry, what's your name?" Naruto asked politely._

"_Kankuro… Kankuro Sabaku." The guy said, and gave him a thumbs up._

"_Nice to meet you, Kankuro, even though we didn't meet in very good circumstances." Naruto said, giving him a smirk, then looking behind him. "Is that redhead with you guys?"_

_Temari and Kankuro froze when they heard that, and turned slowly to see a redheaded pale boy standing upside down on a branch, looking at them all. The boy had fair skin; eyes similar to Temari's, with no discernible pupil; black, tanuki-like rings around his eyes, and no eyebrows. He wore a black, full-body suit that had an open neck and went down to more than halfway down his legs. Over this he wore a white cloth that went across his chest over his right shoulder, and a band over his left shoulder that held a gourd on his back. _

_"Kankuro... you're a disgrace..." The redhead said in a gravelly voice. _

_"Um... G-Gaara... I was just-" Kankuro began. _

_"Shut up, or I'll kill you." Gaara said, narrowing his eyes, and Kankuro immediately shut his trap. Gaara disappeared in what Naruto recognized as a sand Shunshin. Appearing in front of Naruto, he said, "I apologize for my brother's antics. He is easy to anger."_

_"Meh, no worries. Gaara, was it?" Gaara nodded. _

_'__**Naruto! That chakra! This boy is also a jinchūriki!**__' Kurama exclaimed in his head. _

_'Really now?' Naruto responded. _

_"Hey Gaara," Naruto said, "What's your demon?" _

_All three of the Suna ninjas' eyes widened. _

_"I... contain the Ichibi, Shukaku," Gaara said tentatively, "But how did you know?"_

_"Because you and I are kindred spirits in that regard." Naruto said, smirking at the expressions on the Suna ninja. _

_"Which one are you?" Gaara asked. _

_"Number nine, Kurama the Kyuubi." Naruto answered. _

_"I will be waiting to face you in the finals, Uzumaki-Namikaze." Gaara said, then began to walk away, his siblings following him. A few steps later, Gaara clutched his head, and Naruto heard him whisper, "Mother... you want his blood..."_

_'__**There's something wrong here...**__' Kurama said. _

_'What's the matter, Kurama?' Naruto asked the demon fox as he walked towards Ichiraku's. _

_'__**Shukaku may have been an annoying pest and a bit on the sadistic side, but that boy looked like he was suffering from insomnia, and that quiet exterior held a lot of insanity. You sensed it too, I assume?**__' _

_'Yeah, I did... Are you saying that something is wrong with Gaara's seal?'_

_'__**I can guarantee it, buddy.**__'_

_'Well then, I guess I better start studying that fūinjutsu section of my house's library.' Naruto thought with determination. _

**Flashback Kai! **

When he got home that day, he began studying fūinjutsu as well as practicing with his new ability, the Tendrils.

The most shocking and annoying part of the month actually came two days ago. It started when that strange ANBU with the kanji for 'Root' on his mask came to his front door.

**Last flashback! I promise! **

_Naruto was currently inside his home, eating some eggs and rice he had cooked. Almost as soon as he finished, as if it were timed, there was a knock on his door. Putting the plate in the sink, he walked to the door and opened it to find an ANBU standing at his door. But this was no normal ANBU. His clothes were different, and his mask was blank with the kanji for 'Root' on the front. _

_"Yes?" Naruto asked nonchalantly. _

_"Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze, my master has asked me to extend an invitation to join the ANBU section known as Root." The ROOT agent said in a respectful voice. _

_Naruto's eyes hardened, and he responded in a steely voice, "Tell that war hawk Danzo that he can keep the invitation. I have no intention of becoming an emotionless weapon for him to use." With that, he slammed the door closed and went upstairs to the library. _

_Minutes later, he heard another knock. Walking downstairs, he opened the door carefully to find the same ROOT agent there. _

_"I'm afraid that you don't have a choice," he said, and Naruto noticed that behind the guy were maybe 30 ROOT agents, looking ready to intercept him. _

_Naruto narrowed his eyes and growled out, "And I'm afraid that you just signed your death warrant." He shifted his right hand into claws and with blinding speed stabbed the ROOT agent through the stomach, making him cry out in pain. He then absorbed the agent and held his head as blinding pain went through his eyes and head. _

_He stood up 10 seconds later and noticed something strange about the ROOT's DNA and, when he studied it, he realized that this ROOT agent had a kekkei genkai! Apparently, it was a doujutsu. _

_He quickly focused Kurama's chakra into his eyes and noticed how the world suddenly became sharper. He looked around and saw that he could now see every little detail of the ROOT ninja that were getting ready to attack him. _

_"This must be... the Byakugan!" Naruto exclaimed._

_"That's it! Attack!" Random ROOT Ninja (RRN) #1 yelled, and there ROOT around him jumped forward._

_Naruto quickly activated his claws on one hand and his tendrils on the other. Tapping into Kurama's chakra, he activated the __**Kyuubi Rikudou**__ and dashed forward, meeting the ROOT ninja head on. _

_With his speed, claws, tendrils, and occasional wings, he made quick work of the ROOT ninja. He went around a group of ten and began running around them at dizzying speed, slashing to death five of them and crushing the others with the tendrils. He broke from the circle and dashed at another group of ten. This time, he turned both arms into tendrils and began grabbing, throwing, and crushing the ninja, who all fell easily. He then intercepted the ten last ninja with claws ready and went through their ranks at incredible speed. He paused after passing them all. A second later, the ninja feel apart in a large spurt of blood. _

_Finally, only the captain who ordered the attack remained, and was visibly shaken. Naruto looked at him and said, "Go, and tell your boss that he can shove his invitation up his ass, and that the next time I won't hesitate to hunt him down myself and kill his sorry ass."_

_The ROOT ninja nodded and jumped away. Naruto relaxed and dropped his Chakra Mode and went to consume all 30 of the ROOT ninja he'd killed. Moments later, and a lot of writhing in pain after, he had gained another two bloodlines. _

_The first was __**Yōton **__(Lava Release), which Naruto realized he was able to use with Kurama's chakra because it was practically fire chakra. Looking at the memories of the ROOT with the kekkei genka, he went through a few hand signs and said, __**Yōton: Yōgan Gurobu!**__ (Lava Release: Lava Globs I think), breathed in, and spit out five globs of lava which hardened on the ground and made the blood on the ground evaporate. _

_The second kekkei genkai that Naruto acquired surprised him completely. He focused chakra on his eyes while activating that ROOT ninja's DNA. Suddenly, the world slowed down slightly. He didn't find anything interesting about this, so he walked inside with the kekkei genkai still on and looked at himself in a mirror, whereupon he froze. _

_"The Sharingan..." he whispered. _

_In all its glory, the famous Sharingan was spinning inside his eyes. He noticed that it had three tomoe around the pupil. His eyes, however, remained blue in color. _

_"But... I thought that all the Uchiha had been killed in the massacre, minutes Sasuke and Itachi. How do I have this?" Naruto asked himself. _

_Running through the memories of the Uchiha ROOT, he realized that Danzo had this Uchiha in his ROOT army to begin with and, when the Uchiha Massacre happened, had kept him hidden so that he could have one loyal Uchiha on his side. _

_"Is Danzo nuts? He knows that I can consume being and their DNA." Naruto said, wondering if Danzo was as wise as he looked. _

**The end of the final flashback! **

Naruto had practiced plenty with his new kekkei genkai these last two he was able to activate them both with a thought, and they barely drained his chakra.

All in all, he was ready for the Chunnin Exams tomorrow. All he needed now was a good night of sleep.

Naruto closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep. And after a few minutes, he did just that.


	12. Chapter 12: The First Test

Alright, I first want to say that I am so, so sorry for taking so long with this! I just really slacked, plus I also focused on playing NFS: Most Wanted and Ninja Storm 3.

NorthSouthGorem: I've read your crossover and I have to say I loved it! I do wish it as well.

Those miffed about the deaths of Zabuza and Haku: I did have my reasons, but I'm gonna be doing something special with them and a few others so sit tight! ;)

Enlace: While I'm not sure yet what bloodline I'll have Naruto give Ino (if any) I do write as I go so I'll think of something. And yes, Naruto is getting a helluva lot of kekkei genkai.

SUBJECT-XVI: Glad you like it, but I'm not very good at writing darkness. I'll try my best though.

roboguy45: Don't worry, all that chakra will play a part soon enough. Just be patient.

Kriegmane: To answer your problems: 1) I believe that was answered last chapter, but if not, Naruto learned it (and just about everything else he knows) from his father's library in his estate. Come on, his dad was the Hokage, how could he not write things like ROOT down? I also think he was the one who disbanded them in the first place. 2) The flashback for that happened last chapter. Instead of Itachi torturing the poor kid and making him froth at the mouth for vengeance, he actually explained it to Sasuke and left him with some understanding of how things went down during the Uchiha Massacre. 3) I hoped some people made the connection, but the ability for Tendrils came from the DNA of Kankuro, who mainly uses chakra strings. That's the connection I made, although, in hindsight, that's a pretty difficult thing to spot. My apologies. 4) I don't know about THAT, but I do know that I'm planning to make everyone around him as strong as he is in some kind of way. I actually did this to an extent in this chapter. More will come later. 5) Minato did say he was writing that letter on borrowed time, and he had the stuff he needed to seal with him at the moment.

wooden farts there on the go (love the name): Why is Haku female? That will come at a later time.

* * *

**Konohagakure; Outside the building of the first part of the Chunnin Exams, 8:50 AM…**

"Where the hell is he?!" The loud, banshee-like voice of Sakura Haruno cut through the air.

"Calm down, Sakura-hime," the voice of Sasuke Uchiha followed, his statement causing Sakura to almost immediately calm herself and blush at the same time at the way Sasuke referred to her, "He's probably on his way. You know he wouldn't miss the Chunnin Exams for the world."

Sakura looked at him and smiled. "Yeah, I know, Sasuke-kun, but I'm just annoyed. He's following up on our sensei's antics!"

Sasuke shrugged and just said, "Well, Kakashi-sensei _would_ like one of his students to follow in his footsteps."

Before anything more could be said, they both saw a moving light maybe half a mile away. In barely two seconds, it had moved quickly in front of them, startling them both and causing them to drop into their respective fighting styles: Interceptor Style for Sasuke and the Academy Style for Sakura. A moment later, however, the light solidified into Naruto, causing them both to relax, if only slightly, and then gasp in surprise.

The reason being that this was the first time they had actually seen Naruto using his **Kyuubi Rikudou** form. Sakura had heard of it from Ino, and both had felt the chakra spike two days ago and didn't recognize it, so they assumed it was Naruto. But this… they hadn't expected this look.

"Naruto?" Sakura asked.

"The one and only!" Naruto exclaimed, cutting off Kurama's chakra and returning to his old self. For this occasion he was wearing an outfit he had worn once before: A red T-shirt with a white spiral on the front with black cargo shorts with four pockets for different things; a leather jacket that went down to his hips, had a red trim, and a red-on-the-inside hoodie; his black hitai-ate on his forehead; and sneakers on his feet. Kubikiribocho was strapped across his back.

"I like the look, dobe," Sasuke said.

"Thanks, teme," Naruto said, then looked at him in the eye, "So, how much training have you done in the last month?"

Sasuke smirked and, instead of answering him, activated his Sharingan. His eyes turned red, his pupil shrank to a dot, and Naruto counted three tomoe in his eyes.

"Wow," Naruto said, "You already got to the third level?" Impressive. How'd you manage?"

Sasuke shrugged and said, "Simple. I kept it activated for as long as I could. Didn't work well at first. I passed out from chakra exhaustion within a few minutes and Kami knows what would have happened to me had Sakura not been there at the time."

Sakura slugged Sasuke on the arm with a wink and a smirk and said, "Yup! Be glad I was there to save your life!"

Sasuke smirked at her and said, "Oh really? Yeah, save my life after trying to take a peek under my clothes."

Sakura went bright red at the sentence, and Naruto ended up laughing his ass off on the floor from the thought of that.

"I thought we agreed to never speak about that, Sasuke-kun," Sakura said in a low voice.

"Ahahahaha! That's priceless!" Naruto laughed. "But wait, you said 'trying'. Did you wake up beforehand?"

Sasuke blushed, Sakura blushed twice as hard, and Naruto began laughing again at their expressions.

"No, but seriously…" Naruto said, all mirth from his eyes gone, which startled his teammates, "I have a surprise for you, Sasuke."

The fact that Naruto called him by his name told Sasuke he was serious. Sasuke looked on as Naruto closed his eyes for a second before opening them again. He didn't see anything different in them, until he looked closer and saw that Naruto's pupil had elongated, and around the slit-like pupil were… three tomoe, spinning around his eye. At the sight of that, Sasuke stepped back in major shock and stuttered, "Is… i-is that…"

"Yeah…" Naruto finished, "… the Sharingan."

The group became silent for a minute.

"I'm guessing you're wondering how I got these eyes…" Naruto started. Sasuke's stiff nod was all he needed.

"It all started when a shinobi that looked like an ANBU appeared at my house." Naruto began. "He said that his boss would like for me to join the ANBU organization known as ROOT. Knowing the damn organization, I immediately said no."

"What's ROOT?" Sakura interrupted.

Naruto looked at her and said in a deep voice, "It's a separate faction from the regular ANBU, one that is run by Danzo Shimura, one of the Elders. Danzo believed that shinobi are nothing more that weapons and should have no feelings, kind of like what Zabuza believed. Except that Danzo beats, tortures, and demeans the ninja he has to make them totally emotionless weapons. And when a ROOT ninja can't complete a mission…" The hair covering his face fell a bit lower. "… He kills them, as if he were throwing away a rusty kunai."

Sakura gasped and Sasuke looked like he was going to be sick.

"But how do you know about them?" Sasuke asked, "If they're like the ANBU, shouldn't people know about it?"

"Yes, people would know... if it weren't for the fact that Danzo's most likely running ROOT deep underground. See, my father wrote down all he knew about the organization and left it in the library of my Estate. Once I read about it, I almost snapped in rage." Naruto explained, frowning. Sasuke nodded.

"Back on track," Naruto continued, "When I told that ROOT ninja that I wouldn't join them, he returned some time later with a faction of thirty other ROOT ninja and said I don't have a choice. In response, I stabbed him with my claws and absorbed him, unknowingly gaining this." Naruto then closed his eyes yet again, then opened them again. His pupil had become a sky-blue color, his pupil had disappeared, and the veins around his eyes had bulged, but only slightly. Sasuke immediately recognized it.

"The Byakugan!" he exclaimed.

"Yep," Naruto said, then stopped the flow of youki and deactivated the Hyuuga's all-seeing eyes. Naruto continued. "When I killed the guy, the rest of the ROOT ninja attacked me. I lured them to one of the training grounds around my Estate and killed them all, but I left the captain alive so he could tell Danzo himself that I had no intention of joining ROOT and I could carry out with my threat. Afterwards, I absorbed every ROOT shinobi that I killed. In total, I gained two more bloodlines. The Sharingan, as you know, and the **Yōton** bloodline."

"But... I thought that all Uchiha were killed because of a planned coup d'état. That's what Itachi told me..." Sasuke said, seemingly to himself.

Naruto nodded and said, "Yes, that's true. However, it seems that Danzo, knowing of the attack or even possibly ordering it, kept at least one of the Uchiha under his command with him. According to the memories I gained from one of the higher-up ROOT ninja I consumed, Danzo wanted to use the Uchiha, whose name is Haketo, as a baby maker, so that he could have his own Uchiha army always at his command."

Sasuke gritted his teeth in anger, and his Sharingan activated without his knowledge. Naruto, noticing this, immediately said, "Sasuke, calm down. Don't start thinking about trying to kill Danzo or something."

"So what do you expect me to do?!" Sasuke asked him in a frustrated voice. "Just sit back as the one who possibly ordered my niisan to kill my clan stays free?!"

"No..." Naruto said, "I want you to look at things rationally. In your current state, you can't do anything against an experienced war hawk like Danzo. Remember, you don't have to do this alone. I feel the same as you, that man shouldn't go free at all... and in the memories I gained from the ROOT ninja I absorbed, I think I know just why, and how to take him down. But for now, calm yourself. We're still here for you, right, Sakura?"

"Of course we are!" Sakura said.

Sasuke, deactivating his Sharingan and looking at the two, couldn't help but smile in appreciation. "Thanks, you two. You have no idea how much that means to me."

"Anytime. I'll help you get as strong as you can, considering I have to train my abilities as well." Naruto smiled.

"Speaking of that…" Sasuke began. "You have Claws, Tendrils (Naruto told and showed them a day before the ROOT battle), Kurama's chakra, the Byakugan, Sharingan, and a lava bloodline, right?"

Naruto nodded. "Yep, that's about the size of it. Oh, I also still have some **Hyōton** DNA on me as well."

The sheer number of abilities Naruto had made both his teammates feel rather small. Naruto, noticing this, tried to think of something to cheer them up.

"Don't worry, guys. I'm not planning on leaving you behind. Remember when I said I still have _some _**Hyōton** DNA?"

"Yeah?" Sakura said.

"I gave some to Hinata-chan. And now she can use **Hyōton** as flawlessly as Haku could." Naruto said bluntly.

Sasuke's and Sakura's eyes widened at that. Sasuke exclaimed, "You can give people bloodlines?!"

"Yup!" Naruto said, smiling. He then looked at the clock on the outside of the building. "Better save the rest of the talk for later, we're not gonna make it if we stay here!"

Sasuke and Sakura were startled out of their stupor and rushed into the building with Naruto. Passing by the second floor, they could see a few Genin trying to get past two other people blocking the way to a room that read '301'. The three of them immediately recognized the Genjutsu, but since they didn't see any of the rest of the Rookie 12 there, they discreetly continued upwards. Hey, the less competition, the better.

While walking up the stairs to the third floor, Sasuke couldn't help but think back to the night that his life as an Uchiha changed...

**Flashback! **

_Sasuke walked up to his clan's compound, the whole while feeling that something was very amiss in the atmosphere. His senses were much clouded. He could hear, somehow, cries of pain coming from somewhere nearby, and he could just barely smell one of the strangest smells he had ever smelled. But it wasn't an unfamiliar smell… oh no… no it wasn't. It was the smell… of blood._

_Quickly entering the Uchiha Compound, he couldn't help but puke at the sight that met him. _

_Everywhere he looked, he saw the sight of empty onyx eyes; of the blood pooling around the ground; and the cries of those who had not yet died but were bleeding… broken… or worse._

_He couldn't stand the sight! He couldn't! Who could do this?!_

_Running towards his house, he got his answer._

_There, with his ANBU armor on, his long raven hair tied back in its usual ponytail, his eyes in their Mangekyo state, with a three-bladed shuriken spinning in there... _

_"Itachi-niisan!" Sasuke yelled out, hoping beyond hope that what he was seeing wasn't true._

_Itachi turned to him, and what Sasuke saw made him stop dead in his tracks. _

_His dear, beloved brother was holding their father, Fugaku Uchiha, by the throat. Blood was pooling under Fugaku, and Sasuke could see his father's Mangekyo Sharingan disappear and be replaced by his usual onyx eyes, which were bland and lifeless._

_"Tou-san!" Sasuke yelled. Falling to his knees, he began crying in sadness, sadness that quickly became anger. "WHY?!" Sasuke yelled at Itachi. "Why did you kill them all?!"_

_Itachi walked up to Sasuke and looked him dead in the eyes. "I'm not supposed to…" Itachi said in his usual, emotionless voice, "… But I will show you."_

_Suddenly, Sasuke's world swirled, and he blacked out, only to come to in a world almost completely red in color. The color was so sudden that Sasuke had to shut his eyes for a bit until he got used to the bright red color. _

_Once that happened, he looked around, only to find Itachi standing a mere 2 feet away from him._

_"Why are we here, Itachi-niisan?" Sasuke asked, a steely edge in his voice._

_"This is my Tsukuyomi world. I assume you've heard of it." Itachi said._

_"Yeah, I've heard about it. So, what now? Are you gonna torture me and kill me like the rest of our people?" Sasuke said with venom in his voice. He entertained the thought of getting up, but decided to simply sit and cross his legs._

_Itachi's eyes softened, and he walked up and sat in front of Sasuke. "No, Sasuke. I came here to explain the reason as to why I killed our brethren. You see, I'm not supposed to speak of this, but I have bargained with the higher-ups to keep you alive, and I cannot simply leave you like this. I do not wish to have your hate."_

_"What do you mean?" Sasuke asked, his anger gone and replaced only with confusion._

_"You see, Sasuke, our Uchiha brethren were planning a revolution." Itachi said bluntly._

_"What?!" Sasuke yelled. "But why?!"_

_"I cannot hope to explain all the reasons as to why they wanted to revolt against Konoha, but I do believe, based on the meetings I attended, that they believed that Konoha did not trust them anymore. Not since… the attack of the Kyuubi." Itachi explained._

_"What does that have to do with it?" Sasuke asked._

_"I will not say. It is not my place to say so." Itachi said. "But I believe you will learn it one day." _

_"Okay…" Sasuke said. "… So why kill them all?"_

_ "Because I am loyal to Konoha, and to the Sandaime Hokage." Itachi simply said. "If I had allowed events to take their course, then the Uchiha would, under the guidance of our father, have revolted and killed almost everyone in Konoha, innocent or not."_

_"What?!" Sasuke exclaimed. "No! They wouldn't!"_

_"I am sorry, Sasuke, but it is the truth." Itachi said._

_Sasuke stayed quiet for a moment, then said, "So that's it then? You are more loyal to Konoha than to your own clan?"_

_"To be perfectly honest, yes." Itachi said, startling Sasuke with the bluntness of the answer. "I couldn't allow that to happen, because it would mean that Konoha would be severely weakened. And with that weakness, comes invasion from other nations."_

_Sasuke stared at his brother for a while, before saying, "No… no, I don't believe it!"_

_Itachi shrugged and said, "Believe it or not, that's your option… but I just want you to know one thing, Sasuke." Leaning in closer, he put two fingers on Sasuke's forehead and pushed lightly, and Sasuke's sight began to become black, the last thing he heard being, "I will always love you, little brother."_

**Flashback Kai!**

Sasuke was shaken out of his trip down memory lane when Team 7 had the room in sight.

Upon arriving at the room, they found their sensei Kakashi outside, reading his regular Icha-Icha.

"Ah, my cute little Genin," Kakashi said, eye-smiling at them, "You guys ready for this?"

"You bet, Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed.

Kakashi nodded, said, "Good luck," and the team went inside.

Naruto barely made it two steps in when everyone heard a double shout of, "Naruto-kun!" followed by being glomped by two rather busty 13 year olds. Some of the Genin in the room snickered, while others just looked on in shock or boredom.

"You know, you're gonna get killed if you keep this racket up." A calm voice called out, and the Genin all turned to see a silver-haired man standing there. He had on a pair of circular glasses, and was wearing a purple, high-collared shirt, and pants of the same color. He was also wearing fingerless gloves and a blue Konoha hitai-ate.

"And you are?" Naruto asked, picking himself off of the floor when his two girls got off of him, blushing furiously.

"Kabuto Yakushi," the now known Kabuto said, smirking knowingly at the blushing girls.

"So is this your first time, Kabuto?" Sakura said.

"Actually… it's my seventh," Kabuto said sheepishly, scratching his cheek.

"Damn… you must suck!" Kiba said, standing next to Shino and snickering.

"Ah, Naruto-kun!" Naruto heard a voice behind him and, turning, he found Rock Lee standing behind him. There was a major difference in him, however. Instead of the usual green suit with orange leg-warmers he used, he now had a black trench coat, very similar to the one the Yondaime used and the one Naruto took to using, which, if Naruto had to admit, actually made the entire image he had much better. Black and green. Next to him, his teammate Tenten Higurashi was wearing her usual pink-blouse-and-dark-green-pants outfit, and next to her, Neji Hyuuga was in his usual tan-shirt-and-dark-pants combo as well.

"Well, you're looking good, Bushy Brows," Naruto said, smirking at the boy.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun! I have tried to emulate you as best as I could, but…" Lee started.

"Dude, it's alright. I'm flattered," Naruto said, "But, back on topic, Kabuto, do you really suck?"

Kabuto looked miffed, and said, "Whether I do or not, these last six tries have allowed me to gather much information on other contestants." Pulling out a deck of cards, Kabuto said, "These are Ninja Info Cards. I just pump chakra into them and all the info I know of a subject comes on here."

"Can you look up certain people?" Naruto asked.

"Of course," Kabuto answered.

"Give me Gaara Sabaku from Suna."

"Add Rock Lee and Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze to that as well," Sasuke spoke up. Naruto gave him a glance, but said nothing.

"Aww, you know their names. That's no fun. Oh well." Kabuto got down on one knee, set a card down, and spun it while pumping chakra. A second later, words appeared on it. "Alright, Gaara Sabaku," Kabuto began reading, "A Genin from Sunagakure. Can control sand very easily. Has done 9 C-ranks and 2 B-rank missions. Says here that he has come of every mission… untouched. Teammates are his siblings, Kankuro Sabaku and Temari Sabaku."

The Konoha 12 looked at Gaara with some wonder and fear, with the exception of Naruto, Neji, and Sasuke.

"Next, Rock Lee," Kabuto said, picking up another card. "Genin from Konohagakure. Terrible at Ninjutsu and Genjutsu, but his Taijutsu is off the charts. So far he has done 44 D-ranks, 12 C-ranks, and 1 B-rank. Teammates are Neji Hyuuga and Tenten Higurashi."

"And finally," Kabuto picked up a third card, and Naruto leaned in, his muscles tensing. "Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze. Son of the Yondaime Hokage Minato Namikaze and the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero Kushina Uzumaki. Has an unknown Kekkei Genkai that allows him to change his body and absorb others. So far, he is able to use Claws and raven Wings. Gained Kubikiribocho from the missing Kirigakure ninja Zabuza Momochi. He's also able to use the youki of the Kyuubi as if it were his own chakra, meaning it had no repercussions. Also-"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off as Naruto had shifted his right arm to his Tendril ability, grabbed Kabuto, and slammed him against the wall, the tendrils holding him black and bloody red in color, and holding him around every joint: around both shoulders, neck, legs, and wrists. The other Genin were shocked at Naruto's attack, but Sasuke, Neji, and Lee immediately got into their signature stances: Interceptor, Jyuuken, and Goken, respectively. Naruto paid them no attention however. Instead, he walked up to Kabuto's restrained form and stared at him directly in the eyes.

"How did you know that?" Naruto asked.

"Kn-*gack*-know what?!" Kabuto asked, trying to free himself from the tendrils and failing, ending up cutting his hands instead.

"That I have mastered the Kyuubi's chakra." Naruto responded. "The only ones who know so far are my girlfriends Hinata-chan and Ino-chan, and my teammates Sasuke and Sakura-chan. So what's up? Are you a spy?"

Before Kabuto could respond, Naruto heard a yell of, "Die, Namikaze scum!" and a kunai was lodged into his neck.

Most of the Rookie 12 gasped in shock and surprise, with the exception of Sasuke, Sakura, Hinata, and Ino. The Iwagakure Genin that had lodged the kunai into the side of Naruto's neck was majorly surprised when, instead of releasing Kabuto and dropping dead, Naruto simply reached up with his free left hand, grabbed the kunai, and with a _squelch_, took it out of his neck. Some blood followed it, but the wound on his neck instantly healed. He added biomass into his left arm and, with a snap of his arm, he sent the Iwa Genin flying across the room, where he crashed on the far wall.

"You Iwa idiots never were able to forget the stupid War…" Naruto muttered. "Anyways, back on track…"

Before he could continue, however, there was a poof of smoke, startling many of the Genin, and a group of people appeared at the front of the room.

"Alright maggots, settle down!" The tallest one yelled. He was a tall, tanned man who had a few scars on his face. He wore dark blue pants, a black shirt, a dark blue trench coat, boots, and a bandana that covered his head. The man looked at Naruto and, while ignoring the tendrils coming out of his hands, said, "Drop him, Namikaze."

Naruto obliged and released Kabuto, his arm returning to its normal Tendril form before becoming a regular arm again.

"Yeah, sure… Who are you?" Naruto asked.

"The name's Ibiki Morino. Now sit your sorry ass down before I fail you and your team." Ibiki growled.

Naruto looked at him and asked, "So I can sit just about anywhere?"

Ibiki shook his head and said, "No, you can't. Everyone come up and grab a paper. It will say where you're going to sit."

After everyone came up, Naruto counted himself lucky. He was sitting next to Hinata, on her left. He smirked and kissed her lips quickly, making her blush before she returned it with a peck of her own. Naruto, hearing a grumble, looked forward and noticed that Ino was two rows ahead of them and looking back at the pair, pouting cutely. Naruto winked and blew her a kiss, and Ino responded with a blush.

"Okay, you worthless maggots! This will be the first part of the Chunnin exams." Ibiki barked out, while his assistants went around putting papers in front of the Genin, face down. "In this part, you're gonna be answering a test." There were a few groans from around the room, Naruto's being the loudest. He might be a mostly good tactician and thinker, but he was terrible in tests! "That's right! Now, when I give the order, you're to flip the papers around and start the test. The rules are as such. If you're caught cheating, you will lose two points. Each one of you has ten points in total. If you lose them all, you're out! Also, this is a team exercise, so if you fail, your entire team goes!" There were yells of anger and surprise almost immediately, but Naruto figured Ibiki must have taken lessons from Iruka, because his head suddenly increased in size and he yelled out, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" The Genin immediately did so. "There are nine questions in the test, and you'll have 50 minutes to answer them. The tenth question will be given to you by me in the last 10 minutes. Ready? Well, too bad if you're not. BEGIN!"

Immediately, everyone flipped their tests over, and Naruto nearly had a heart attack at the questions. _'This shit is at least High Chunnin if not Jounin level! Damnit, I'm fucked!'_

Naruto began answering the questions as best as he could, but he had plenty of trouble with them. Five minutes in, while looking through the questions, he went through the rules.

_'Two points for every time you're caught cheating. Ten points total. So I can be caught five times before I get kicked out… That doesn't seem right. When in the Academy, if you got caught cheating once, you were immediately kicked out of the test. So… they're giving us five chances to cheat, eh? That's it… we get to cheat! No… we HAVE to cheat!'_

Coming to that conclusion, Naruto decided to use his newly acquired Kekkei Genkai: the Byakugan and the Sharingan. First, looking at the people around the room, he discreetly used the Byakugan to look for a good victim to copy from. Finding it in one of the Genin in the room, he studied how confident he was in answering the questions before turning off the Byakugan, looking around discreetly, then activating his Sharingan and studying the man's hand movements. Moments later, he turned the Sharingan off and wrote his answers, then relaxed and used the rest of his time, which was about fifteen minutes, to look at the other Genin.

Hinata and Neji had the same idea he did, use the Byakugan to copy answers. Sasuke was using his Sharingan. Sakura had no need to cheat, due to her smarts. Ino had switched with Sakura and was copying her answers. Gaara was using a sand eye, which took a good part of two minutes for Naruto to spot, to copy answers. Kankuro was probably using one of his puppets. Tenten was using a cleverly placed mirror to show her answers to Lee, who moved his hitai-ate to signal her when to stop.

Finally, after some grueling tension, and plenty of teams walking out, the last question came along.

"Alright, maggots," Ibiki started, "Put your pencils down!" Everyone did so. "Now, this last tenth question has a little hitch. You have a choice to take the question or not!"

"And exactly why wouldn't we answer the last question?" asked Temari.

"Simple, really." Ibiki shrugged. "If you decide not to take the question now, you will be disqualified and can take the Exams next year." Some people looked at each other at this. "However," Ibiki continued, an evil smirk playing on his face, which set Naruto's inner alarms off immediately, "If you choose to take the question… and fail it… you'll never be able to take the Exams and will remain a Genin forever!"

A deathly silence followed this. Moments later, however, there was literally a rush for the door as a number of Genin left, their teammates following grudgingly behind. However, there were still plenty of teams left. Ibiki was about to say something else when something tapped his head and, when he looked, he saw a finger-like appendage attached to three long tendrils that were twisting around each other. The tendrils led to the outstretched left hand of one Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze, who was currently whispering something into Hinata's ear that was making her blush increasingly red.

"Yes?" Ibiki asked irritably.

Naruto looked at Ibiki for a second, before saying, "Could you just shut the fuck up and give the question already? I swear, I could probably have made Hinata-chan pass out from the amount of things I could have told her. Like that when we were back-"

Before Naruto could go on, Hinata immediately slapped her hand over his mouth, silencing him. Her face was beet red.

"Naruto-kun, enough!" Hinata whisper-screamed, looking pointedly at Naruto but beginning to smoke at the ears when her imagination went into overdrive, and then her nose began to bleed.

"Alright, alright," Ibiki said when he saw that no other teams were leaving, "You got guts, kid. I like that." Naruto just shrugged and mumbled from behind Hinata's hand. Ibiki continued, "Anyways, to the teams that are still here… You pass!" The happy exclamation sent the remaining 20 teams into shock, before a collective "NANI?!" from 60 mouths was spewed forth.

"Yep!" Ibiki said.

"But… but what about the tenth question?!" Kiba exclaimed.

"There was none. Or I suppose you could say that your choice of taking the question _was_ the question." Ibiki answered.

It seemed like some other teams wanted to say something, but suddenly, Naruto's sensed kicked in again. He looked to his left and saw what appeared to be a black ball coming towards the window. He activated **Kyuubi Rikudou** (**Nine Tails Chakra Mode**) for a brief moment, but did not feel any bad intentions coming from the blur. So he sat back and waited. Moments later, the black blur crashed through a window, startling a great many people. A banner was thrown up that said, "**Single and Sexy, Anko Mitarashi!**" The black ball bounced on the ground and up to the ceiling, but before it could go back down, something broke out from the ceiling and grabbed it, pulling it up against the ceiling. The ball turned out to be a kunoichi with purple hair in a similar style as Shikamaru's. She was wearing a very revealing outfit, which consisted of a fishnet torso cover, an orange skirt, and an open trench coat that perfectly covered at least half her assets, vertically. And currently, her arms, legs, and neck were being held by a number of tendrils.

"What the fuck?!" Anko yelled out, attempting to get free. "What is this shit?!"

On the ground, Ibiki, of all people, was on his back, clutching his stomach, and laughing like he just witnessed the world's funniest prank. This honestly startled many people, since he didn't seem like the guy to laugh like that.

Many people looked up to Naruto, who had his feet up on the desk and looking at the nails of his right hand. When he felt the stares, he looked up and said, "What?"

This caused another round of laughter from the people assembled, while Anko just looked at him with an annoyed glare.

"Gaki!" She yelled at Naruto. "Was this your doing?"

"Don't you mean _is_ this your doing?" Naruto said, lifting his left hand to show that the hand was turned into Tendrils, which were pointing at the ground.

"Get me out of this shit!" Anko yelled. Naruto gave her a half-assed look, and she knew instantly what he meant. "Now!" she yelled, even higher. Naruto made no motion that he heard. He only continued to stare. Finally, when she felt the tendril at her neck tighten slightly, she said through grinded teeth, "… please?"

Almost immediately, the tendrils retracted through the ceiling, and Anko, not having expected such a quick response, fell to the ground in a heap. Most of the assembled Genin and Ibiki went through another round of laughter. Anko quickly got up, cleared her throat, glared at Naruto, and then surveyed the room.

"20 teams, eh? Seems you still got some of your touch, old man." She said, directing her speech to Ibiki.

"And a tough bunch they were, too." Ibiki said.

"Well, no matter. By the time I'm done with them, their numbers will be cut down by half," Anko said, rubbing her hands together and licking her lips. Many of the Genin gulped, some audibly. "Anyways! My name is Anko Mitarashi, as the banner states, and I'm the Proctor for the Second Part of the Exam! Meet me in Training Ground 44 in half an hour!" With that, she sent one last glare to Naruto, who stuck his tongue out at her and wiggled it up and down, causing her cheeks to redden, then jumped out of the window again and disappeared.

"Alright, Genin, get out of here." Ibiki said, sounding tired. However, when Naruto passed by him, he stopped the boy and shook his hand, saying, "Namikaze, that was priceless! I'll definitely be watching out for you."

Naruto smirked and said, "If that had been an enemy, we'd be dead by now. So I just did what I had to do." He continued walking, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder at Ibiki. "And by the by, it's _Uzumaki-Namikaze_, not just Namikaze." Ibiki nodded, and Naruto continued on his way out.

He found his teammates outside the Academy, and joined up with them.

"So, we got half an hour to get to 44," Naruto began, making his teammates look at him.

"So our second test is in that accursed place?" Sasuke said, his eyes getting an unfocused look.

"Yeah… just like our younger days…" Naruto said, lost in memory lane as well.

Sakura, looking at the exchange the two boys had, said, "Wait, what's Training Ground 44."

Naruto and Sasuke shared a look, then looked at the kunoichi in front of them.

"You might know it by its more conventional name, Sakura-hime…" Sasuke said.

Naruto nodded and, using biomass to change his vocal chords to one of the more deep-voiced ROOT ninja (almost as low as Madara's voice), said, "… The Forest of Death…"

It had the desired effect, and both Sasuke and Sakura shivered at Naruto's tone of voice, even though Sasuke had been there a few times before, with Naruto actually.

Naruto, though, broke the feeling by coming back to his regular voice and saying, "So! You guys wanna get some ramen before going there?! I'll pay!"

Both Sakura and Sasuke face-fell.


	13. Chapter 13: New Discoveries

**Second part of the Chunnin Exams…**

Training Ground 44, a.k.a. The Forest of Death… A place so feared by what was inside that most shinobi outright avoided the place. Gigantic predators, deadly flora, and an aura that made you want to shit your pants were some of the major reasons why this was so. However, to some ninja, it was a challenge that they accepted wholeheartedly. And for others, it was home away from home.

As was the case with the Proctor and two of the Genin: Anko Mitarashi, Sasuke Uchiha, and Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze.

Anko, being an ex-student of the traitorous snake Sannin Orochimaru, was hated by many people all around the village. Therefore, she had taken residence in the tower that was at the middle of the Forest of Death. This left her with at least some peace, and was a perfect playground for the sadistic snake kunoichi.

As for the two Genin, this was one of their favorite achievements: Surviving the Forest of Death.

**Flashback no Jutsu!**

_Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha were currently walking towards the dreaded Forest of Death, trying to calm their nerves. While having a hearty meal at Ichiraku's, they had decided to try and traverse one of the deadliest places in Konoha. _

_Walking up to the gate, they could see, even in the darkness that came with the setting sun, a number of shapes moving all around the forest. Looking at each other, Sasuke was the first to break the silence._

_"Dobe, are you sure this is a good idea?" Sasuke asked, trying his best to not to let the shakiness in his voice show. "I mean, I know we want to be as strong as possible, but isn't this going a little overboard? We still have a few months to go until we graduate."_

_Naruto looked at him and said, "Teme, we already decided this. I am _not_ backing out of this! And neither should you!"_

_Sasuke gulped but nodded. Together, they pumped their legs and jumped up and over the fence._

_That night, to anyone passing by 44 by any chance, the sounds of screams and yells of pain, from both human and animal mouths, could be heard._

**Flashback no Jutsu Kai!**

After that day, Naruto and Sasuke had taken to exploring 44 more frequently, staying away from the tower in the center unless it was a major emergency. After many weeks, they had finally gotten the layout of the place and the behavior of the animals that resided in it committed to memory, and after a few more weeks, they were able to traverse the forest almost completely unharmed.

Anyways, back to the second test, the sixty Genin that survived the dreaded first test now found themselves in front of a living nightmare. Many wondered if it wouldn't have been better to simply have given up in the first test, but then steeled themselves to be able to effectively become Chunnin.

In a poof of smoke, Anko suddenly appeared in front of the forest, her trench coat fluttering but not revealing anything from the waist up. Looking over the teams, she yelled out, "Alright, kiddos, welcome to the second exam, which is situated in my favorite place of all, Training Ground 44, or The Forest of Death!" Many Genin visibly shivered, both at the name and at the glee that was in Anko's voice at saying this. "Now, here is the point of this test! You will go into the forest having one of these." She held up two scrolls, one with the kanji for 'Earth', the other with the kanji for 'Heaven'. "Your team will have one of these scrolls! The point of the test is to get the other scroll from another team _by any means necessary_…" The last part was said in a low voice, but everyone heard her nonetheless, and many people visibly paled at this. "Now, my assistants will bring around a form for each of you. You just need to sign it to ensure that Konoha is not responsible for your death." Again, paling, and a few scribbles. "Now, GO GET YOUR SCROLLS AND MEET UP AT YOUR GATE!" Immediately, everyone separated and went to pick up their scrolls.

Arriving at their gate with an Earth Scroll, Team 7 was looking around, trying to see who was closest to them. Naruto could spot a Kusagakure team far to their left, and an Iwa one to their right. The whiskered blonde felt something was wrong, and, looking around, discreetly tapped into Kurama's chakra and sensed his surroundings. He immediately understood why he felt that way. From the Kusa team, he felt a hell of a lot of negative emotions inside one of their Genin, all of which was directed at him and his team. In fact, for a Genin, said Kusa ninja seemed to also have a lot of chakra.

Cutting off Kurama's chakra, he focused back on his team and waited for the signal.

The gates in front of them opened moments later, Anko's voice rung out, "GO!" and all the teams jumped in.

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke immediately began running straight forward, trying to get as close to the tower as possible so that if they got a scroll, they could get to the place without too much interruption. On the way, Naruto said, "Guys, watch yourselves. One of the Kusa Genin on the team that was to our left had the largest amount of KI and negative emotions I've seen so far, and I could sense it was aimed at our team, particularly you and me, Sasuke."

"Why would a Kusa ninja be after us?" Sasuke asked, perplexed.

"Maybe it's because of our abilities. You have the Sharingan, although I do too, and I have my biomass abilities. So whatever happens, stay on your toes."

Both Sasuke and Sakura nodded, and the latter said, "What about me, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the honorific, and asked, "How much medical Ninjutsu have you learned?"

Sakura thought about it and said, "Enough to heal small bruises and cuts, or a broken bone with most of my chakra."

"Good. I don't need that, but I don't know if I can use biomass to heal someone without infecting them, which I'm trying to avoid. So we'll need you to be at the ready." Naruto said, and Sakura nodded.

Moments later, they met up with two teams that intercepted them. Both teams had the Iwa sign on their hitai-ate.

"There you are, Namikaze! Prepare to die!" Random Iwa Genin (RIG) #1 said.

"Oh, Kami-damnit, it's you guys again," Naruto groaned. Turning to his teammates, Naruto said, "Guys, go on ahead and find somewhere to hide."

"What?!" Sakura exclaimed. "Why would we do that?!"

"Because these guys want me, and I'm good enough to deal with them. However, this battle will most likely draw plenty of attention, so if that Kusa Genin comes and attacks us while we're busy fighting, then he or she could easily achieve whatever they want with us. So go!"

Sasuke didn't like it any more than Sakura, but he decided to trust their current team leader. So they jumped to each side away from Naruto and continued onward, looking for a place to hide for now.

"So…" Naruto said, walking up slowly to the Iwa Genin, who began drawing kunai, shuriken, and swords from their packs.

"We'll defeat you right here, Namikaze scum!" RIG #2 said, and looked at his fellow Iwa Genin. "And then we'll be hailed as heroes for ending the last of the line that killed our men in the war."

Naruto raised one eyebrow and said, "What the hell is wrong with you guys? Are you conveniently forgetting that it was a freaking _war_?! Of course Tou-san had to kill your troops! We were enemies, for Kami's sake! Don't deny that you wouldn't have done the same!"

"Of course we would! But what your scum of a father did was trickery!" RIG #3 yelled.

Naruto sighed and said, "Please. My father developed the **Hiraishin** as his own jutsu, like any other Jounin would. It was no trickery. It was simply better ability."

"Just shut up and die!" RIG #1 yelled, and darted at him, but before he could hit him, he was tripped by Naruto and sent flying with a punch to the back. Switching to his Tendril ability and activating **Nine Tails Chakra Mode**, he grabbed the Iwa Genin and pulled him back towards him.

"And I suggest you don't ever insult my family again… Not that you'll have a second chance in the first place." With that, the Tendrils crushed the Genin's throat, spine, arm and leg joints, and chest cavity, then turned the Genin into biomass which was consumed by Naruto. The Iwa Genin watched in fear as their comrade was consumed by Naruto. Said flaming Genin (no pun intended) looked at the rest of the Genin and simply said, "If you still want to fight me, I won't guarantee that you'll survive. In fact, your chances of surviving are close to none. If you want to leave now, do so. I'll give you three seconds."

When they saw Naruto's sadistic smirk at the mention of 'three seconds', three of the Iwa Genin bolted, hoping to pass this round and _not_ face that guy. The other two simply yelled at their comrades for being cowards.

"Wrong," Naruto said, "They're not cowards for understanding when to back away from a battle. You two… your pride will be your end…" And with that, Naruto activated his claws and disappeared from the Genins' sight. Both Genin were then aware of a light that began spinning around them at rapid speeds, and suddenly Naruto appeared again behind the two Genin, down on one knee and with both claws up behind him. A moment later, in a burst, both Genin exploded in a show of blood, body parts, and wind. Naruto stood there for a moment as blood and body parts rained down on him, then went around and absorbed the DNA of the two Genin, finding a Heaven scroll, which was exactly what they needed. He looked at his claws and noted the blood on them, then, out of instinct, lifted his right claw and licked the blood off, actually savoring the taste.

_'Huh… who knew I was this sadistic…'_ Naruto thought, and his thought was interrupted by a sudden spike of both chakra and negative emotions in the direction that his teammates had gone. _'Shit! That Kusa ninja must have found them!'_

Using as much of Kurama's chakra as he could, he dashed straight towards his teammates while thinking that it was a dumb idea not to give them a **Hiraishin** kunai.

Not really knowing the entire distance between him and the enemy, he was surprised when they were actually farther than he'd thought. He managed to reach the group just as the Kusa ninja had extended _her _neck to apparently try and bite Sasuke, who was rooted to the spot and was sporting a number of injuries, though none were life threatening. Flashing over to them, he activated his claws and slashed straight through the ninja's neck, severing the head from the body only moments before Sasuke was bitten. Standing in front of Sasuke, he looked at him and smiled.

"Hey, teme, you alright?" Naruto said.

"N-Naruto!" Sasuke exclaimed.

"The one and only." Naruto said, then looked at the Kusa Genin. "You… who are you?"

"Kukukuku…" The Kusa ninja chuckled in a deep, scaly voice, "You must be the Kyuubi brat, Mister Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze."

"I swear to Yami, either you tell me who you really are, or I'll rip it right out of your memories, you teme." Naruto growled.

"Well, I do suppose it won't do much harm. After all, you're going to die soon enough," the Kusa Genin drawled out, and then reached up to her face. Naruto watched in morbid fascination, and Sasuke and Sakura in horror, as she literally _ripped_ her face off to show another face underneath. This one familiar to Naruto.

"You…" Naruto growled, "Orochimaru, one of the legendary Sannin."

"Kukukuku, I'm glad to see that I'm recognized." Orochimaru said.

"What the hell are you doing here, Orochi-teme?!" Naruto yelled out.

"Simple enough, Naruto-kun. I'm here to give dear Sasuke-kun a little gift," Orochimaru said.

"Over my cold, dead body," Naruto growled, and, thinking it was better not to hold back, immediately activated all his abilities: Claws on his right hand, Tendrils on his left hand, the Sharingan on his right eye, the Byakugan on his left, and finally his wings, which fluttered out from his back. The wings were covered by the same flaming aura that Naruto's body had, and it made them look angelic. The Sharingan in his right eye had actually become red this time, with the three tomoe colored black (as in the normal Sharingan), and the Byakugan caused his left eye to become a light orange color, pupil-less, and with the veins on the side bulging out even more than was normal for him. A chakra construct of an arm came out from Naruto's back, between his wings, wielding Kubikiribocho.

"What?! Is that the Sharingan?!" Orochimaru yelled.

"The one and only." Naruto said, then signaled his left eye. "Recognize this one?"

Orochimaru looked closer and examined it. Bulging veins, a lighter color than the normal eye color, no pupil…

"That's the Byakugan…" Orochimaru realized.

"Yep, the very same," Naruto nodded.

"Kukukuku, well, Naruto-kun, you certainly full of surprises." _'It seems that I've found a better vessel than Sasuke-kun. The Sharingan, Byakugan, those claws, and a practically immortal regenerative body! I must have him!'_ Orochimaru said and thought.

"Why don't you join me instead, Naruto-kun?" The snake Sannin offered.

"And exactly why would I do that?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Together, you and I could be a force to be reckoned with. Think about it. Nothing would stand in our way!"

Naruto grunted and said, "No thanks, teme. I don't plan on becoming one of your bodies."

Orochimaru looked shocked and said, "How do you know about that?!"

"Simple. During the month of training I had before the Chunnin Exams, I was lucky enough to stumble into one of your bases. Apparently you were very careless, because I was able to get inside, despite my moderate knowledge on seals. I found out all about your plans of immortality by switching from body to body. That in and of itself isn't immortality, teme. Not even close." Naruto explained.

"No matter, Naruto-kun. You _will _become my new vessel soon enough," Orochimaru stated arrogantly.

"And what makes you think I will?" Naruto asked yet again.

"I recall you not having a choice!" Orochimaru stated, dashing towards Naruto, who tossed a **Hiraishin** kunai to both Sasuke and Sakura, yelling at the latter to heal Sasuke, and then dashed ahead to meet Orochimaru head on.

Both ninjas' foreheads crashed against each other, causing a shockwave to spread from their location. Slowly but surely, Orochimaru began pushing Naruto back. Noticing this, Naruto moved to the side, allowing Orochimaru to continue past him, and slashed at the Sannin's body with his claws. Orochimaru ducked under the slash right on time, but wasn't prepared for when Naruto moved at incredible speed behind him and grabbed him with his Tendrils.

"Gotcha!" Naruto yelled, and proceeded to crush the snake man's body. Moments later, however, Orochimaru's corpse turned to mud and slipped by Naruto's tendrils.

"Damn, mud clone!" Naruto exclaimed, and sensed his surroundings to find Orochimaru. It didn't take long, considering Orochimaru's thoughts, and Naruto could see that the Snake Sannin was attempting to bite Sasuke again. Using the **Hiraishin**, Naruto flashed to Sasuke and slashed at Orochimaru's neck, cutting it off. That Orochimaru turned to mud as well.

"Orochi-teme! Stop hiding behind mud clones and face me like a man! Or are you a coward, oh great Snake Sannin?!" Naruto yelled, attempting to goat Orochimaru into fighting him head on.

This, however, proved to be annoying as three different Orochimaru's suddenly dropped in front of Naruto.

"Well, then, if you insist," the middle Orochimaru said, and the three dashed forward at the flaming ninja.

Naruto, grinning like a madman, dashed forward as well. Once in front of him, he threw a mid-body slash at the Sannin with the chakra arm wielding Kubikiribocho. Even with Naruto's strength, Orochimaru's flexibility was enough for him to dodge it, so Naruto followed with a number of slashed, all seemingly random, and all evaded. While the arm was battling Orochimaru, Naruto went for the mud clones, using a combination of his tendrils and claws to attack. However, the mud clones had managed to avoid all injuries due to their flexibility and experience in battle, but hadn't managed to hurt the Kyuubi Jinchūriki either. This was getting on Orochimaru's nerves.

_'How is this brat so fast?! I can understand him being able to use the __**Hiraishin**__ but he hasn't marked me with any jutsu formulas! So how can he move like this?! Could it be the Kyuubi's power?' _Orochimaru thought, frustrated.

Naruto finally had enough and decided to employ his speed to the fullest. Disappearing in a flash, he began spinning around and around both mud clones, cutting them up everywhere. Finally, he slashed through both of them at once with Kubikiribocho, an easy feat considering the size of the Zanbatou, grabbed both halves quickly with his Tendrils, and threw the mud clones at Orochimaru before the mud clones exploded, much like the two Iwa Genin he'd killed earlier. Orochimaru simply dodged the mud shower and stood in front of Naruto.

"Kukukuku, well, seems like I'll actually have to go all out here. Prepare, yourself, Kyuubi brat!" Orochimaru yelled, and, cutting his finger, began going through hand signs, then slammed the bloodied hand into the ground.

Suddenly, in a big cloud of smoke, one of the largest snakes Team 7 had ever seen appeared, with Orochimaru on top of it.

"Now you die!" Orochimaru said. However, he was surprised when he saw Naruto chuckle, then laugh out loud.

"What's so funny?" the Sannin asked, a bit peeved.

"You think size determines power? Alright, I'll play your game." Naruto said, looking up at Orochimaru and his snake. Smirking, and called out in his mind, _'Let's go, Kurama!'_ Kurama nodded, and focused his youki, combining it with the one in Naruto.

Almost immediately, Naruto's power increased dramatically. The flaming aura he was covered with seemed to part at the middle and open into a haori, with the inside being a black color that had three magatama on each side of the high collar. The seals on his body expanded and became complete circles, his eyes became red and slitted, and his whiskers became thick lines.

Focusing again, Naruto fully completed entering Tailed Beast Mode, and caused a flash of light that made everyone cover their eyes. Once the light receded, and when everyone heard the sound of something big, they uncovered their eyes, whereupon Sasuke and Sakura began shaking in fear, and Orochimaru's eyes widened to dinner plates.

Its skin was yellow and slightly transparent. It had a number of marks going down its back. And its nine tails were swinging back and forth over the landscape.

It was the Kyuubi no Kitsune, back in all its glory, as Naruto allowed it to take control of the chakra construct.

"What?!" Orochimaru asked, completely thrown off. "What is this?"

"**Damn, it's been a while since I could stretch like this!**" Kurama said.

"Good to see you're enjoying this, Kurama, but we have a slight snake problem," Naruto stated from inside Kurama's 'head'. The flaming blonde Genin looked back to his teammates and signaled for them to hop on, which they did hesitatingly.

Orochimaru looked at the Kyuubi construct and thought one thing.

_'No doubt ANBU have already been alerted and are on their way. But even without those, I can't fight a full-blown bijū and hope to survive… not yet.'_

"MARK MY WORDS, JINCHURIKI, WE'LL MET AGAIN! AND NEXT TIME YOU WON'T BE SO LUCKY! I _WILL _ATTAIN THE SHARINGAN, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER!" Orochimaru yelled, then disappeared, along with the snake summon.

"Well… that was anticlimactic…" Naruto said, sweatdropping.

"**Yeah, no kidding.**" Kurama stated, also sweatdropping.

"Can you sense him, Kurama?" Naruto asked.

Kurama closed his eyes and concentrated. Moments later, he shook his head and said,"**Well, yeah, I sense him. But he's far now. I don't know how he traveled that distance so quickly.**"

"We'll worry about that later! For now, let's get to the tower!" Naruto exclaimed, and Kurama nodded in agreement, and dashed towards the tower in the middle of the Forest of Death, barreling down anything in his path, including unlucky teams.

Finally, they arrived at the front of the Tower, startling the Suna ninja who were just coming in. Temari and Kankuro were shaking in fear at the Kyuubi chakra construct, while Gaara was staring wide-eyed since he had seen no other bijū other than Shukaku.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke got down from the chakra construct and Naruto said, "Thanks for the ride, Kurama."

Kurama and Naruto pounded fists before the kitsune said, "**Anytime,**" and disappeared. Naruto looked around and noticed the Sand Sibs there, gawking at his flaming form.

"What?" Naruto asked.

When none of them answered, Sasuke said, "Dobe, I'm pretty sure they've never seen your flaming form before."

"Oh, right." Naruto said sheepishly, cutting off Kurama's chakra. His haori seemed to close up, going back to his regular **Chakra Mode** form, before the flames disappeared and Naruto stood there in his regular form.

"How you doing, guys?" Naruto said to the Sand Sibs.

They didn't answer, just chose to stare. Naruto shrugged and signaled for his team to follow him.

Walking inside, they saw a message written on the wall. Looking around, they spotted nothing else of importance.

"So what now?" Naruto asked.

"Now… I think we should open the scrolls." Sakura suggested.

Shrugging, Naruto took out the Heaven Scroll he obtained and Sasuke took out the Earth one they had gotten at the beginning. Opening them both, they found a long seal sequence and Naruto, having studied these seals, said, "Sasuke, drop it! It's a reverse Summoning!" Sasuke obliged and both of them dropped the scrolls. Seconds later, a poof of smoke appeared and from it spawned the last person they thought they'd see: Iruka Umino.

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto exclaimed, while Sakura and Sasuke settled for more quiet greetings.

"Hey guys! I think you broke the record for the fastest time. It hasn't even been 10 hours yet." Iruka said.

"Sweet." Naruto said. Sasuke smirked in his usual Uchiha way while Sakura cheered at being recognized for that.

"Now, we're still waiting for any other contestants so just hang out here for now. For Team 7…" Iruka checked a list he had, "Your rooms are on the third floor, rooms 217-219. Go on and relax for now."

They all nodded and left. Walking up to the third floor, they reached the rooms, but before they could go in, he tapped them both and signaled to his room. Shrugging, they went into his room, where he got comfortable and signaled them both to do the same.

"Alright, guys, remember what we were talking about before the start of the Exams?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke nodded and said, "Giving people kekkei genkai."

"Yup, that. I've been thinking all throughout the Exams and I realized that although I can give people bloodlines through biomass, I don't know if I can go past that. I'm also pretty sure I can give people the same virus I have, but I'm not sure yet on how to do that. Therefore, I'm willing to give you any bloodline that I _can_ give you. As you already know, I have the **Sharingan**, **Byakugan**, **Yōton**, **Hyōton**, and… three more, the **Mokuton** (**Wood Release**), **Jinton** (**Swift Release**), and second **Jinton** (**Dust Release**)."

Sasuke and Sakura stared, wide-eyed, at Naruto.

"Wait, isn't the **Mokuton** the kekkei genkai of the Shodaime Hokage?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah, it is. The other two, although named similarly, aren't the same. The first **Jinton** is a kekkei genkai that grants the user the ability to move at really fast speeds. This gives them an advantage against enemies that are more about speed than strength. I'm not exactly sure what element is needed for it but I assume its wind. The second **Jinton** is an earth-based kekkei genkai. From what I've studied of it, the user gathers chakra into a three-dimensional object such as a cone or a cube and shoot it at the enemy. The technique surrounds the enemy and allows the user to manipulate the molecules of whatever is inside the technique, allowing them to completely disintegrate whatever is inside. From what I've read, only two people have this kekkei genkai, Mu the Nidaime Tsuchikage and the current Sandaime Tsuchikage, Onoki. Apparently, it's also very chakra taxing, so it isn't an easy kekkei genkai to use."

Sakura and Sasuke were hooked onto Naruto's every word, nodding every once in a while. Around the end of the explanation, Sakura asked, "So how did you get the three kekkei genkai?"

"From Orochi-teme's lab," Naruto shrugged, "He had some DNA on the Shodaime Hokage, which accounts for the **Mokuton** kekkei genkai. The **Jinton** (**Dust Release**) the teme got from both the previous _and _current Tsuchikage. How he got them, I don't really know, since he didn't detail that. However, the other **Jinton** (**Swift Release**) I couldn't find any information on, only what it could do. It was kind of annoying not finding that info, to say the least."

Sakura and Sasuke nodded at this and Sasuke said, "Naruto, I'd like to be able to use the **Jinton** (**Swift Release**). I'm pretty sure it would help with my Interceptor Fist style, plus I'd be able to use the speed to react more quickly to whatever I see with my **Sharingan**."

Naruto nodded and asked Sasuke to cut open a small gash on his palm. Sasuke did, and Naruto held his index finger over the cut. A moment later, tendrils began whirling around Naruto's arm and focusing on a ball on the tip of his finger. The small ball compressed and dropped into the cut, and immediately began spreading inside Sasuke, who grunted in pain and held himself for a few seconds. After Sasuke was done trembling and stood up straight, he looked at them both before staring at a spot across the room. A second later, both Sakura and Naruto blinked and fell over laughing their asses off when Sasuke seemingly disappeared in a flash of movement before slamming straight into the wall of the room with a muffled groan.

Peeling himself off the wall and rubbing his sore face, Sasuke said, "Ouch… Well, seems like I'll have to practice this… outside." The statement only made Naruto and Sakura laugh harder.

Finally stopping his laughter, Naruto turned to his pink-haired teammate and asked, "Well, Sakura, what would you like?"

Sakura began thinking. After a few minutes, she said, "I think the **Yōton** kekkei genkai would be good for me. It's a very good defensive and offensive kekkei genkai and I could use it to back you guys up."

"That's a rather good choice, Sakura," Naruto said, then repeated the process with her. After she stopped crying out every so often in pain, she stood up with the same look as Sasuke. Naruto instructed her on the only technique he knew of the **Yōton** kekkei genkai, and soon Sakura was shooting globs of burning hot lava out of the only window in the room. The interesting thing was that instead of the usual red, black, and white color of lava, the color of the globs she produced were a lighter color, essentially pink. Naruto filed this away for future reference.

Sasuke looked at Sakura after the display and said, "Naruto, could you also give Sakura the **Sharingan**? I figure if she's gonna be an Uchiha soon enough she might as well have the DNA."

Naruto nodded at this and Sakura blushed but felt proud that Sasuke trusted and liked her enough to let her have the **Sharingan**. Holding out her still-cut-open palm, she watched as Naruto dropped another little ball of DNA into it and began cringing in pain. Moments later, both Naruto and Sasuke were in awe when they saw Sakura's green eyes be replaced by blood-red ones that contained two tomoe each.

"Now, Sasuke, come here. I want to try something out." Naruto said seriously. Sasuke, noting this, walked up to Naruto and asked what was up, whereupon Naruto asked Sasuke to hold his cut hand out. Sasuke did, and Naruto was glad to see the cut was still open. Holding his index finger over it again, Naruto created another biomass ball dropped it into his teammate's cut.

This time, instead of grabbing his body, Sasuke grabbed his head and closed his eyes in pain. Naruto watched neutrally and Sakura in anxiety as Sasuke dropped to his knees and squeezed his head harder. Finally, Sasuke opened his eyes wide, and both Naruto and Sakura were surprised by the change, Sakura more so than Naruto.

Instead of the regular **Sharingan** that had a red background with three tomoe, Sasuke's **Sharingan** instead had a black background that contained three intersecting ellipses that stretched out in all directions inside his eyes. What was most interesting was that after a second, a broken circle appeared in the very middle of the new **Sharingan** then closed over it as if locking it in place. Then, to the surprise the Uchiha's two other teammates, his eyes closed yet again, then opened, changed. This time, his sclera was colored grey while his pupil had shrunk to a dot. Circling the dot were a total of three ripples that covered his eye.

"Sasuke, how you feeling?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke looked at Naruto with a wide-eyed expression before replying, "Good… I feel great! What did you do to me, dobe?"

Naruto nodded and said, "Simple. I gave you plenty of Uchiha DNA from the Uchiha that I had consumed, as well as **Mokuton**DNA from Hashirama. I wanted to test out a theory."

"And that is…?" Sasuke asked.

"When Itachi left you unconscious, did he ever tell you or leave you a clue on how to unlock the level beyond the normal **Sharingan**?" Naruto asked. Sasuke shook his head, and Naruto sighed. "Figures. In total, there are five levels of the **Sharingan**: The first three levels allow the user to see chakra flow, copy anything they've seen and mimic it to perfection if their body allows it, predict almost anything by even a small muscle movement, and cast some sort of Genjutsu by eye contact. However, the fourth and fifth levels, the **Mangekyo Sharingan** and **Eien no Mangekyo Sharingan**, allow much greater usage of the normal **Sharingan** abilities as well as grant new ones. As I explained back at Tazuna's, to be able to get the **Eien no Mangekyo**, one must take the **Mangekyo** eyes of another Uchiha, preferably a familiar like a parent or sibling. However, to get the actual **Mangekyo**, the **Sharingan** user must… kill the one closest to them." Sasuke and Sakura's eyes widened, and Sakura released a gasp. "But…" Naruto continued, "I was curious when you said that you were able to mature your Sharingan by keeping it on all the time. I wondered, _'if continuously using the __**Sharingan**__ develops it, what if I can add the DNA of another Uchiha to someone with a mature __**Sharingan**__?' _This train of thought led me to giving you the DNA of the Uchiha I consumed… and if I'm guessing correctly, you don't just have the **Mangekyo**, you have the **Eien no Mangekyo** because I basically flooded your body with Haketo's Uchiha DNA, not your own. Now, I added the **Mokuton** DNA because of a myth I've read from my father's library, although I don't believe it's exactly a myth anymore. You guys ever heard of the Sage of the Six Paths?" When both Sasuke and Sakura nodded, Naruto continued. "It is said that he wielded a legendary doujutsu that allowed him to do many things that people would consider were for gods. Now, it is said that the Sage had two children; one inherited the man's eyes, and the other inherited his body. The clan of the one who inherited the Sage's eyes came to be known as the Uchiha. The other, the Senju. Therefore, I combined the DNA of the **Sharingan**and the **Mokuton** DNA, activating within you the doujutsu of legend... the **Rinnegan****.**"

Sasuke and Sakura stood, staring at Naruto with flabbergasted expressions. Sasuke then smirked, and said, "Seems like I've become a legend in my own right. The first Uchiha to have gotten their **Eien no Mangekyo Sharingan** _and _the **Rinnegan** at the tender age of twelve."

Naruto nodded, chuckling, and said, "Yes, that's true. Would you like to know more about the abilities the **Eien no Mangekyo** has?"

Sasuke nodded, and Naruto told them what he had studied about the **Sharingan**. He explained to them the ability to use the **Tsukuyomi**, a Genjutsu that the **Mangekyo** users can activate with eye contact and plenty of chakra to bring the victim's mind in an illusion that is controlled by the user. The best user of the **Tsukuyomi** (**Moon Reader**) at the moment, Itachi Uchiha, was even able to change the perception of time so that days seem like only seconds in the real world. This made Sasuke's eyes glow in anticipation and determination to surpass his brother. He then explained the second ability, **Amaterasu** (**Heavenly Illumination**), which allowed the user to create black flames that burned indefinitely and were only able to be put out by the caster. This was the highest form of **Katon** techniques, and it took as much a toll on the user as the **Tsukuyomi**. And finally, he explained the ability to summon the ethereal warrior known as the **Susano'o**. He explained the different versions of it and how to use it in battle. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to activate said ability because the document he had found didn't contain a specific explanation.

As for the **Rinnegan**, Naruto was unfortunately unable to help. He didn't know much about it other than that it could control all elements, absorb ninjutsu and chakra, and create things from thin air with the **Creation of All Things**ability. He also explained to Sakura that although she could also obtain the **Rinnegan**with enough time, she needed to get used to her **Sharingan**eyes first and mature them. She also needed to develop bigger chakra reserves. Sakura, although not too happy, decided to go along with the plan.

Finally, Naruto told both his teammates to relax and go sleep.

"We've all earned it, and I can bet you we're gonna be the most kickass teams in this entire exam!" Naruto exclaimed to them, and both Sasuke and Sakura shook their heads before agreeing with their teammate in a much quieter way.

Before leaving, however, Sasuke asked Naruto, "Hey, dobe, if I was able to unlock the **Rinnegan**with the kekkei genkai you gave me, can't you do it as well?"

Naruto studied Sasuke for a few seconds before answering, "Yeah, I probably could. But I haven't felt any different from when I absorbed the **Mokuton**DNA, and I'm not about to start forcing my body to adapt to whatever I give it. If it comes, awesome. If not," Naruto shrugged, "oh well, I still have a pretty large arsenal."

Finally, they left his room, and if Naruto had had his **Byakugan** activated, he would have noticed the Last Loyal Uchiha walking towards his room and opening the door only to be tackled by Sakura halfway through the door. Said pinkette closed the door and locked it, and neither were seen until nighttime the next day.

And that's a wrap! Now, to clarify, yes, Sasuke does have the **Eien no Mangekyo Sharingan**. The reasoning I have behind this is that he has already matured his **Sharingan**, and with Naruto flooding his body with Haketo's DNA, his **Sharingan** developed exponentially. Sakura now has the **Yōton **kekkei genkai, as well as developing super strength and Medical Jutsu (My bad if I didn't mention it). And Naruto… well, you already know.


End file.
